Loathing to Love
by MRN
Summary: Tom Riddle's descent into darkness is not as straightforward as one is led to believe. He hated her, he lusted for her, he loathed her, he needed her. And, as unlikely allies in an unlikely world, she will push him further into the depths of darkness.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Obviously all characters belong to JK, etc. Tried posting this on a different site under a different penname but they've been taking too long to validate chapters so I got a little tired of it. I might continue to update on that site, but we'll see. Enjoy.

She played with her raven black tresses with a whimsical air that served to hide her true intensity; her beautiful almond eyes sparkled with a rich chocolate colour flecked with gold, easily distracting one from their quick and clever observations. Tom Riddle, though mesmerized by her beauty, could not be fooled by it; he saw her ambition and  
brilliance as easily as others saw the delicate texture of her full, velvet-pink lips.

"Do not be fooled by what you see," continued the Potions instructor. "The Polyjuice potion is powerful in its visual trickery, but its strength is neither infinite nor indestructible. There are many charms that can affect its potency."

The class was mildly intrigued; Tom, however, was enraptured. Every potion, every charm, every trick could be used to serve his agenda. Knowledge, in this case, was  
truly power.

"Professor," he began, neglecting to raise his hand as he so often did, "will we be covering lethal potions or lethal side effects of potions at any point in this course?" His eyes widened eagerly as he awaited a response.

"Yes, so I can learn how to rid of YOU, Tom," Nadia laughed, anticipating the nearby giggles as well as the professor's stern reply.

"10 points from Gryffindor for that utterly inappropriate comment, Nadia. And no, Tom, lethal potions are of no use to wizards and witches--there is absolutely no reason to  
cover such nonsense in this class."

Nadia looked down at her book, then turned to catch Tom's glare. His green eyes burned with intensity; she raised her chin and half-smiled, a smirk more than anything. He wanted to smother her beautiful face for her expression of disrespect; he wanted to hold it, kiss it, hurt it; rage and lust boiled in his blood. Her time would come.

* * *

The students scurried to their quarters after class, some eager to converse freely with friends in the commons and some awaiting the warmth of their beds. As he walked through the halls, Tom examined the faces around him; some so pure with hope, some anxious, ambitious, scared or tired; but he was calm. He would read tonight, a fascinating find at the library that would teach him silent incantations.

Through the sea of faces, he suddenly saw one with an expression like his own--calm, composed, filled with a subtle intelligence. "Off to go kill some Muggles, Tom?" she called loudly. Students stopped to turn and watch the ensuing dialogue.

"Not Muggles in general, Nadia, no," he replied calmly. "Just your filthy parents." A few Slytherins gathered around him, laughing, doting, fixing their eyes upon his flawless, cruel face.

"Ah yes," she smiled, "my parents. At least I have parents, Tom-- or did they have some for you at the orphanage?"

His eyes widened. How did she know? He couldn't lose his composure but the anger swelled in his angled jaw. "Oh, I wouldn't be making fun of orphans anytime soon Nadia, seeing as how you'll be one." With that, he turned and marched confidently to his quarters. They mustn't see his weakness, he thought to himself. But he was beginning to think that she...

...she was his weakness. He would visit her tonight.


	2. Chapter 2

Upon entering the Slytherin common room, Tom was greeted by several young women, giggling with each other and positioning their delicate bodies so as to afford him the most sensuous sight that their long robes could offer. Tom clenched his fists but forced a smile across his face, one that, of course, did not reveal his gleaming teeth. That would be showing them too much affection, he thought to himself. Insipid whores.

He made his way to the Head Boy's room, quickly whispered the password and sat down on the crisp white linens that hugged his bed. The room was spacious, immaculate in its organization with books alphabetized and ordered on their shelves, sparkling marble floors and undecorated walls. Tonight he would focus on incantation free magic, the mark of a truly skilled wizard. And then he would go see her.

She vexed him. He didn't mind the banter they engaged in once in a while; that was a relief from the obnoxious giggles and vacuous compliments he received from the other girls in his classes. But today, she'd gone too far. It had been seven years since his experiences at the orphanage, seven long years he'd spent convincing the others he was good enough, pure enough, cold enough to lead them to domination over the wizarding world. And the fact that she so nonchalantly chose to bring back those memories, speak those words-- in public no less--spoke to either boldness or utter ignorance. He mused that she had no idea about his capabilities, no conception of how he could rule her, hurt her, kill her with barely any effort. He would make this known to her, tonight.

-------------------------

"I mean, at least a _little _bit?" Catherine asked, feeling it necessary to indicate the amount with an inch-gap between her index finger and thumb.

"NO," Nadia remarked boldly. "Cat, there's no way I could like the guy-- I really do believe you could get more expression from a corpse. With that pale skin, he's nearly one anyway." She flashed a smile as Catherine rolled her eyes. They sat before the large fireplace in the Gryffindor common room; Nadia had made some tea and both girls sat close in their pajamas, talking freely and laughing occasionally before they each retreated to their beds. It was a routine that both girls looked forward to at night, easing their stresses through smiles and laughter, pretending for a moment that each did not have the burden of worries that came with their parents hiding in Europe from the reign of National Socialists. It was unfortunate enough for them that they were muggle-borns; but it was infinitely worse that their parents were of Jewish origin. From time to time Nadia dreamt about returning, wielding a powerful wand, equipped with the resolve to kill those in her path to rescue her mother and father. But it would be dangerous for witches and wizards alike to venture into Europe, as Grindelwald had a firm and ruthless grasp on the continent.

A harsh voice distrubed her thoughts; Catherine had gone to the restroom to wash up, and Nadia deduced that the argument outside was most likely a Gryffindor either too young to match wits with the portrait or too drunk to remember the password.

"I must speak with her immediately," the voice spoke resolutely. "As Head Boy, she must be aware of her offenses."

"And what offenses might those be, Tom?" Nadia stepped out into the pale, moonlit hallway. "Causing you to have a hissy fit?" Her lip curled upward in a haughty smile as she leaned her body against the wall. Her nightgown was thin and silver, reflecting the moonlight so as to accentuate her round breasts and smooth, tan legs. It was all too   
clear on that chilly night that she was not wearing any undergarments.

Tom cleared his throat and raised his head defiantly. "I must inquire as to how you are aware of my associations with the orphanage," he said coldly.

Nadia raised an eyebrow as her eyelids lowered. "What does it matter? Are you afraid they'll find out that Tom Riddle, Mr. Fearless-leader-slash-charming-brilliant-kiss-ass has rather humble beginnings? Maybe if your head wasn't shoved so far up your ass you'd realize that where you come from isn't important. At least, not to people you should care about." She had a vulgarity unbecoming of a lady her age, in her time, but she didn't care. She felt that, particularly in conversations with Tom Riddle, it drove the  
point a little deeper than eloquent banter ever could.

But in this case, it merely infuriated him. He reached his pale, strong hands to her neck and shoved her against the cold stone wall. "You don't seem to be listening to me, Mudblood. I asked you a _question_. When I ask _questions_, they are _answered_." The calmness with which he spoke was frightening, as was his tightening grip. Her hands grabbed at his arms as her eyes widened in shock. Tom drew his face closer to hers, pressing her thin body against his until she felt a numbness crawl over her. "Don't--" she choked, struggling to release herself from his cold grip.

He relented suddenly, and gracefully. He stepped back, feasting on the figure of his prey shuddering under his shadow. "Do we have an understanding, my dear?" His even voice didn't betray the horror of what had just happened. Nadia rose from the floor where she struggled to find balance and breath; where he expected to see fear, however, he saw rage.

"Understand this, you repulsive brute," she spoke harshly. "I answer to no one. _Especially _not you. And I swear on all that is holy and righteous and magical, you touch me again, and you will wish you'd never left that orphanage." She abruptly turned her back to him, snapping her head back to meet his cold gaze.

"And yes, that's a threat." The portrait slammed shut.


	3. Chapter 3

It was difficult to resist the urge to tear through the wall and rip her into beautiful pieces; she was a feisty one, for certain, and Tom was sure he would be the one to tame her.

Walking back to his quarters he reflected on why he'd never cared to notice her before; she transferred to Hogwarts from Hungary a little less than two years ago, though he was sure that her dark, exotic look spoke to an ancestry somewhere deeper in the Middle East. She was shy at first, but as she grew accustomed to the language (with a certain affinity for vulgarities, he noted) she grew bolder, and her outgoing personality found a pleasant home among the Gryffindors. She was short and thin, with dark olive skin, black hair and sparkling amber-brown eyes; but Tom had had his fair pick of beautiful girls at Hogwarts, tall, blonde, leggy Anglos equipped with just the perfect amount of gullibility to make them bend to his will. As they took classes together, he noticed how Nadia would hide her brightness, almost ashamed to seem like a capable witch, or perhaps just too modest. They'd been partnered in class on occasion, which is when he was first exposed to her fiery (albeit vulgar) wit, a welcome reprieve from the ditzes that fawned over him daily. But no, that wasn't what intrigued him.

What intrigued him was the fact that her boldness in speaking with him increased in direct proportion with his descent into darkness. The more meetings he had, the more contempt she would show him; the more hexes he studied, the more she would publicly articulate how deceitful and repulsive he was; the more murders that occurred, the more willing she was to directly implicate him. He was intrigued because, quite simply, in a school of hundreds of brilliant witches and wizards, this slight, dark-haired girl was the only one to see who--and what--he really was. She recognized darkness as easily as he slipped into it.

He had the entire school under his control, thinking him to be a proper, brilliant, driven and handsome young wizard; if she would not relent mentally, he would force her to yield physically. It was this twisted logic that drove his lust for her.

And, in light of the fact that tonight, she gave him no answers, she did not obey his will, he was forced to dispense of his aggression while thrusting into another faceless Slytherin girl, a routine he engaged in so often that he began to wonder if they would ever realize his blatant insincerity.

----------------

For her part, Nadia could hardly fathom how they placed a prefect badge on the chest of a veritable lunatic. Everything about him repulsed her; where they saw confidence, she saw arrogance, where they saw brilliance she saw cunning and manipulative tendencies. Girls often raved about his charismatic smile, strong jaw, glistening green eyes and perfectly parted black hair; but the sheer evil that seeped from his being tainted these features in her eyes. And tonight--tonight she felt validated, not violated. All the things she'd known about him, all the malicious capabilities she suspected were laid out in front of her, or more specifically, strung around her neck.

As she quietly made her way back to her room, she wondered what it would take for them to see the true Tom Riddle. From the moment she arrived she was uneasy about him; his straitlaced manner and cold demeanor reminded her of the SS agents that patrolled the streets of her neighborhood in Budapest, and his eyes flared with the same hatred theirs did. Before fleeing to Hogwarts, she had tolerated so much hatred, so much prejudice, that she felt immune to it. He would never get what he wanted from her.

Lying in her bed, Nadia reached to stroke her neck; it was still a bit sore. She laughed to herself, thinking about how his face would look if he knew why she was familiar with the orphanage. She had nowhere to stay during the summers, just like him, and thus volunteered to spend her time nannying the muggle children there in exchange for food and housing. And one summer, while strolling in the park adjacent to the orphanage, she found rather remedial handwriting etched into a tree:

"I will be better than all of you and I will come back to claim your lives. -Riddle."

Arrogant arse, she thought to herself before drifting to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Nadia felt like she'd slept two hours when she woke; her mind was restless during the night, though she suspected it had more to do with her sore neck than anything else. The surge of hot water on her skin felt blissful during her shower, and she took delicate care to wipe the cold feeling of Tom Riddle's hands from her body and mind. She didn't wear much makeup, but after pulling her dark hair back into a low bun she decided to apply some mascara, a little blush, a nude gloss, and nearly a bottle of concealer for the bruises on her neck. It looked awkward. There was always a chance she could just leave them there, and tell the truth to anyone who asked—but the second that thought crossed her mind she nearly laughed audibly. The students and professors would sooner accuse her of self-inflicted strangulation than admit Tom Riddle was involved in foul play. "_Episkey_," she muttered, pointing her wand at the red and blue marks. They faded almost immediately.

In the commons she caught up with Catherine and they made their way to breakfast. "I know what happened last night Nady. Now there's no way you can deny your feelings for him!" She wore a bright smile that suited her freckled face well, but it stood in stark contrast to Nadia's unquestionable expression of disgust.

"You've—you're—you're joking right? What the hell did you see last night that could possibly convince you of my feelings for that miscreant?" She refused to move forward until Catherine could produce a response.

"Well when I came out of the restroom I didn't see you in the commons, but I did hear something outside so I…well I decided to take a peek, only for a moment, and you two were…" she looked shyly at her feet and bit her lower lip, "well, he looked like he was all pressed up against you and your hands were on his arms—"

"—to prevent him from _choking me_!" Nadia exclaimed, enraged at the absurdity of her assertion. "He nearly strangled me, Cat! For a comment I made earlier! He's a lunatic, an absolute, fucking lunatic." A few students looked at her as they passed, shocked by the impropriety of her tone.

Catherine seemed dismayed. "Nady, calm down, you're drawing attention to us." They walked in silence for a few moments, then Cat turned to face her again. "Are you sure you're not exaggerating? I mean, I see how he looks at you, Nady—"

"—with loathing, Cat. I don't know what he wants from me, but my guess is that he's pissed I won't fall prey to his ingratiating behavior like the rest of the population at this damn school."

"But Nadia…"

"No. I won't waste words trying to convince you Cat. There's a saying in Arabic-- ابذل لصديقك دمك ومالك—'Never justify yourself. Your enemies won't believe you and your friends won't need it.' And I'm hoping, I'm really hoping, that you're not just pretending to be my friend." She breathed in deeply, slinging her black bag over her shoulder. "I'll see you in Transfiguration."

* * *

He saw her walk into the dining room toward the end of breakfast; there was something off about her look, though. Perhaps she was scared, he thought, replaying last night in her mind over and over again, frightened by what he may do next—

"Hey Riddle—I think they only carry normal food here. You may have to check elsewhere if you're looking to eat some brains or have a sip of Muggle blood." She smiled widely, raising her eyebrows in self-satisfaction. Clearly, he'd been mistaken.

She continued to grab a croissant and sit with her fellow Gryffindors, all the while very aware of Tom's watchful eyes and characteristic scowl. As she spread butter and strawberry jam on the bread, she couldn't admit to being surprised by the reaction of her friends.

"Really Nadia, sometimes you're so hard on him. Not that he cares, but still—what has he ever done to you?" asked Persephone, a seventh-year acquaintance whom Nadia judged to be hopelessly idealistic and, oddly, perceptively aware of her shortcomings.

"Yeah—I don't get it," chimed in Laura, a sixth-year who was all too familiar with the quarters of Slytherin males. "He's so proper, respectable—whenever you two argue you're always the one to start it. If I didn't know better" (which, Nadia thought quietly, she didn't) "I'd say you had a crush on him!" She giggled, a sort of high-pitched squeal that was more uncomfortable than amusing.

"Why Golly, you're—you're absolutely right Laura," Nadia smiled sarcastically, tiring of their ill-conceived conclusions. "I just can't stop thinking about him! Do you think he'll ask me to the Winter Ball?" She fought the urge to wretch when she saw Laura's eyes brighten.

"Ohmygodohmygodohmygod! Yes! That is _soooo_ cute!" She was nodding vigorously now, and Nadia figured that before she started convulsing it would be best to just leave.

"Take care girls, and please," she rose from her seat and reached for her bag, "please make more of an effort to not be so gullible. That type of blind faith could kill you, you know." Shaking her head, she left the dining room.

Tom was enthralled by her every movement. Not even jilted, he thought to himself. Barging in here and calling him out—again—with no fear whatsoever. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't seem to pry his eyes away from her bold movements.

"Watching our next victim, my Lord?" Abraxas Malfoy's malicious tone filled his left ear. "She's been so vocal as of late, it would serve two purposes to rid of her." His bright blue eyes glistened with malevolence as he turned to Tom for approval.

Tom was caught slightly off guard. He'd been so enraptured by her nonchalance that he temporarily forgot the presence of those around him. "Yes," he said quickly. "She would be a suitable target for practice. But have patience, Malfoy; the thrill of the chase is half the fun." As he spoke he felt himself conflicted; his pursuit of her was indeed electrifying as she made him vacillate between utter loathing and uncontrollable lust. But part of him did not want the chase to end—at least, not with her demise.

"I'm pleased, my Lord," Abraxas continued, joining Tom in watching her every movement. "She would be rather…delicious…to taste before her death." His pale eyes feasted on the gentle curves of her body, and Tom immediately felt his stomach tighten.

"You will not touch her," he hissed, focusing on Malfoy with a numbing glare. "She is--" he caught himself before he could say "mine," swallowing hard but steadying his gaze, "—_filth_. You, nor I, nor any of the pure shall mix with her kind. Remember the _goal_, Malfoy. The Mudbloods must be erased from our world: the purity of this goal must not be tainted by your actions." He saw Abraxas nod silently in agreement, and picked up his books. "Tell the others of the meeting tonight. Ensure their punctuality." He left the Great Hall, his heart pounding with rage. He had to exercise an unfathomable amount of restraint to avoid strangling his most faithful follower, and was displeased by this. Pathetic, he chided himself silently. You're letting her toy with you while she's not even aware of it.

* * *

"As seventh years, you have progressed past the point of changing one object into another," began Professor Dumbledore, walking down the rows of students. "Today we will practice transfiguring objects into _nonbeing_, or rather, making them disappear entirely."

A hand raised eagerly before him. "Yes Nadia?"

"Can that type of transfiguration spell work on, say, _humans_ too?" As she spoke she smiled widely, and turned directly to face Tom Riddle. He felt himself flush with anger as the students giggled.

"No, my dear, we are speaking strictly of inanimate objects. Though this does bring up a good point about organic and inorganic matter, and where the line is drawn between what is living and animate and what is dead and inanimate…" Dumbledore continued his lesson as the students listened attentively.

Tom was focused on her the whole time. In the summer after his sixth year, he had begun perfecting his skills in Legilimency, and though he exercised caution in its use (for it becomes easy to lose oneself in the minds of others, he knew) he felt it appropriate to delve into the thoughts of the stubborn, dark-haired girl two seats in front of him.

A frown came to his face as he realized he couldn't get through. He tried on the thoughts of those sitting adjacent to her, with magnificent success; but he felt as though he hit a wall of stone when trying to enter her mind.

_Looking for something, Tom?_

His eyes immediately widened as his mouth gaped open—how could she be a Legilimens? So practiced in Occlumency as well?

_You'd be surprised at the mind tricks one learns when forced to flee for one's life, Tom. _

This peaked Tom's curiosity more than ever. _That may be part of it, Nadia, but someone so skilled undoubtedly has secrets to hide._

_Which just tells me all the more about you. I've known all along you're not who you pretend to be. _

_Have you now? And to what do you owe your self-proclaimed perceptiveness?_

_Hiding from the most repulsive, most hate-filled, most loathsome beings in the world, and realizing that the differences between you and them are very few. _

Tom was a little surprised by her answer, but guarded her against feeling his reaction. He also felt strangely comfortable, conversing smartly with someone so perceptive, someone who already knew who he was, someone for whom he didn't have to pretend. But he also liked playing with her; if she thought she'd figured him out, he wanted her to be mistaken.

_Seeing as how you're so comfortable and familiar with my type, Nadia, what say you join me at the Winter Ball next week? _

She coughed loudly, almost choking on the gum she'd been chewing. Tom had to try hard to suppress his smile.

"And that concludes our introductory lecture, next week be sure to bring in an inanimate object you wish to convert to nonbeing." Dumbledore returned to his desk as students filed out of his class, then spoke softly. "Ms. Khalil, may I have a word with you?"

Nadia's heart rate rapidly increased as she wondered if he'd been listening to their conversation. "Of course, Professor." Before she could approach his desk, she felt a harsh whisper in her ear accompanied by warm breath on her neck.

"I'll be expecting an answer soon." She nearly gasped as she turned to face him, their lips inches apart from each other. His eyes lowered to take in every part of her visage, her full, dark lips and smooth olive skin, her glittering brown-gold eyes and long, black eyelashes. "I must say," he whispered, knowing precisely how to anger her, "you'll be the luckiest girl there with me as your date." And with that, he abruptly turned to leave the room.

Nadia breathed out slowly, rolling her eyes at his arrogant display. As she approached Dumbledore, she felt it necessary to preemptively apologize. "I'm sorry for the nonverbal exchange you surely must have witnessed," she began, sitting across from him. "He's just so…_frustrating_…and I can't fathom how he gets away with half the things he does and--"

"My dear, there's no need to apologize. Mr. Riddle should not have been wasting his time trying to invade your private thoughts in the first place."

Nadia couldn't help but smile at his response. "I'm sorry it's—it's just I'm not used to hearing someone actually acknowledge his wrongdoings," she said, looking into Dumbledore's knowing eyes.

"Tom does seem to have a talent for charming, but I daresay it cannot mask some of his more questionable intentions. Do not worry, Ms. Khalil, I have exercised vigilance in dealing with him, and I am happy to see that you are too."

"He's an evil of the worst kind," she said softly, her eyes seemingly elsewhere. "The kind that people love and elect willingly, giving him the power to utterly destroy them later on." She looked like she was remembering something for a moment, then faced him again.

"I know, Nadia, none of this has been easy for you, not since you were forced to come here. But it is precisely the matter you were just pondering that I wish to speak with you about," Dumbledore sat down at his large oak desk, all the while maintaining her gaze. "As you know, you're parents tried to relocate as early as possible, and are currently staying in France with your mother's non-Jewish cousin. It has become increasingly difficult, however, particularly with Grindelwald in power as well as Hitler, for us to exchange messages via owl with Muggles, witches and wizards in that part of Europe. They've been shooting them down and screening messages with alarming frequency."

Nadia felt herself grow tense, but continued to listen silently.

"I have thus resolved to use my phoenix, Fawkes, to collect messages from relatives of students who are in danger; I am telling you this because I will receive the messages first rather than them being delivered at meals, and I don't want you to worry if you don't receive something for a while."

"Professor…thank you. I— thank you." She fought the wetness welling in her eyes, nodded in respect and turned to leave the classroom.


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Note: Ok, not really getting any reviews, I'm not really sure what the feeling is about my story; so please just take a minute to let me know what you think.

---------------

Tom was always amused at how the students reacted to him. Eighty-percent, he silently calculated as he walked through the halls, regarded him with an incredibly fearful respect. Of the eighty, twenty percent were probably scared out of their wits at his presence, and perhaps ten percent were loyal followers of the pureblood goal. The other twenty percent, he decided, were females who nearly fainted in admiration of his charm and good looks. Nadia, he thought coldly, would not be counted in his percentages assessment.

He was very pleased, however, to see that her closest friend belonged to the twenty percent, the hopelessly romantic girls who sighed at the sight of him, waiting for the one moment that he may pay attention to them or even better, choose them to be his faceless whore for the night. This would play into his plans nicely.

"Hello Catherine," he said gently as he passed the brown-haired girl on his left. She immediately stopped and gave him a toothy grin.

"H-hi Tom," she squeaked, stopping to face him.

"You know," he said softly, closing the distance between them, "your eyes look quite beautiful in the morning light…such a lovely color." He smiled, staring deeply into her pale blue eyes for a moment and then adding an innocent question he knew would excite her terribly: "Are you going to Divination right now? I would love to accompany you there." He swore he could almost visibly see the thin flesh on her chest pounding vigorously.

"Of—of course," she said excitedly, running her hands through her curly hair in a vain attempt to appear more attractive to him.

Yes, he thought to himself. She will fit into his plans quite nicely.

----------------

Later that evening Nadia was pleased to see Catherine in such high spirits. Catherine was careful, however, to not fully divulge the details of her contentment, knowing that Nadia would react poorly to the fact that _the _Tom Riddle walked her to class and chose to sit by her all throughout the lecture.

"I'm glad divination was so thrilling for you, Cat—I've got it tomorrow though. Come to think of it, I haven't done the homework yet." Nadia stopped combing her hair and let out a sigh. "Shit. I definitely left the tea leaves we were supposed to use for tomorrow's assignment in class two days ago. I think they're under my chair…"

"Professor Minkle has a lost and found of sorts at the front of her classroom, the bag of leaves is probably there," Cat suggested. "It's chilly tonight though, take my blanket for your walk down the halls." Nadia reluctantly wrapped the maroon and gold fleece around her shoulders, unwilling to leave the comfort of the fireplace. "I'll be back soon," she said, then turned to her friend once more. "Did you have a chance to talk to Dumbledore about the letter arrangement?" Catherine nodded, a look of sorrow coming over her face. "Cat…it'll be ok. We have each other, you know." She smiled warmly, thankful at that moment that she had someone else who knew exactly how she felt.

The hallway was indeed cold. Even the two layers of her pearl-colored nightgown, covered by Cat's blanket, could not prevent a chill from climbing up her spine. She silently climbed the steps for the Divination classroom, wondering what the tea leaves had in store for her future. Going back home, she thought wistfully. Back to Papa and Mama, back to their small, two bedroom flat, back to the cobblestone streets and dancing city lights she was so familiar with. Her thoughts came to an abrupt stop as she crashed into a cold, hard body in front of her.

If she hadn't looked up to meet two violently green eyes she would've thought she'd crashed into a stone statue. The blanket fell from her shoulders and her petite body lay on the ground, the strap of her nightgown hanging loosely off her shoulder. Though in a considerably weaker position than her sworn rival, Nadia still managed to look up at him with a fierce glare. "I know this whole 'living-in-darkness' thing is a big deal for you Tom, but can't you at least warn someone if they're about to run into you? Have you considered, maybe, putting on a headband with a light attached or something?" She almost laughed at the thought of Riddle running around with a light bulb dangling from his forehead, but the sharp pain she felt in her sides as he harshly lifted her up forced her to face the threat that stood before her.

"You know," he said softly, taking great care to not let her slip from his grasp, "I was really hoping to run into you tonight." His lip curled in a half-smile as he used one arm to hold both her hands behind her back, pulling her closer with the other. "You see, Nadia, I just had a meeting with my dearest followers, and the plans we've made for you and your kind are so…exciting." His half-smile was now turning into a grin. Nadia shivered, but tried boldly to not look away from his sharp glare. "And now I see you, in my moment of excitement, and I simply cannot tell you how much I'm looking forward to our date next week." His hand lowered to her thigh, and in a swift and unwelcome movement he tore at the fabric, leaving both her legs fully exposed. Nadia gasped, struggling to free herself from his grasp, but his hand held onto hers so tightly that her wrists started to ache. His other hand chose to explore her legs, grabbing at her flesh, and going so far as to caress her buttocks. He groaned in approval, pulling her closer while pressing her to the wall of the stairwell.

"Let go of me! You sick bastard!" she struggled in vain, but to no avail. She was physically powerless as he chose to tear at the remaining satin of her nightgown, feeling the lace of her undergarments and tracing his greedy hands up her navel to her breasts, which he handled with vigor. Frustrated and helpless, Nadia did the only thing she could. She spat on him.

Her acidic saliva, unfortunately, landed just short of his neck, staining the prefect badge he wore with such pride. This made his eyes glisten with such hatred that Nadia, half-naked and powerless in his strong arms, began to consider that these were the last moments of her life. But instead, Tom Riddle smiled. A most frightening, terrifying smile.

"Oh my dear, you certainly know how to anger me," his voice was calm, composed. "But this does not change the fact that next week, you will attend the Winter Ball as my possession, my little toy. And you will wear what I ask you to. It will be a long, satin dress," he began, inching his face ever closer to hers, "and the color…" He pressed his cold lips to hers, prying her mouth open with his tongue, kissing her deeply and angrily exploring her mouth with his own. She tried to seal her lips but that only made his grasp of her bruised wrists tighten, and she relented unwillingly, letting him feast upon her being. And then, without warning or cause, he bit into her bottom lip, tearing ravenously at the flesh; she screamed and recoiled in panic, the brightest blood dripping from the fresh cut. "The color," he continued calmly, "will be _this_ red," pressing his index finger to her lip, collecting a sample for his taking. He released her suddenly. "You will receive the dress tomorrow, and wear it with pride as my date next week." There was no element of suggestion in his cold order.

Nadia pulled her wrists to her bare chest, massaging them gently. Before Tom could leave the stairwell, she hissed loudly, "Who the _fuck _do you think you are, ordering me around like that? Because you would have to be the last man on the face of the planet for me to even _consider _going to the dance with you, you sadistic _monster_!" Her pitch was almost that of a scream. Tom calmly walked back toward her, and she stumbled back several steps.

"You will do as I say and go to the ball with me because, dear Nadia, I have an uncanny amount of control over a certain…_friend_…of yours. And if you do not follow my orders, I assure you, I will take her, ravage her, ruin her and _kill _her before leaving her corpse as a gift for you in front of the Gryffindor fireplace, where you so often converse." He gave her a sickly grin, then turned to leave.

Nadia stood at the top of the steps, shaking, staring down at the gold and maroon fleece that lay before her. "Cat," she whispered. "Oh god…Cat…"


	6. Chapter 6

_This _time, she felt violated. Nadia silently bent down to pick up the pieces of her nightgown, using one to press to her bleeding lip. She was angry at herself for not bringing her wand that night; considering the amount of anger he ignited in her, she was confident she could've used the killing curse and _meant_ it. But it was too late, and now he'd chosen to entangle her closest friend in his sick web of lust and hatred; the only way she could defy him was if she knew Catherine was safe.

With this thought in mind, Nadia confidently marched back to her dorm, holding the blanket tightly around her so as not to betray the barely clothed body beneath it. She breathed in slowly before whispering to the portrait, a voluptuous maiden who nearly shrieked at her appearance.

"Nady what took you so long? I was wait—" Cat gasped at the sight of her friend, with disheveled black hair strewn over her face, a bleeding lip and pieces of her nightgown clutched tightly in her bruised hands. "Wha—what happened? Did you take a nasty fall down the stairs? Goodness Nadia, we need to get you to the—"

"I'm not going anywhere," she said softly. "I need to speak with you." Catherine nodded in agreement, a worried look spreading across her face. "It seems Tom Riddle has become overly aggressive in trying to make his points these days," she began, sitting in close proximity to her friend. "I think he takes issue with my attitude toward him and has resolved to make me physically pay for it. He assaulted me in the hallway just now, commanding that I go to the Ball with him so that, I can only assume, he can show the others how powerful he is, getting the one girl who despises him to bend to his will. He's so _twisted_, Cat…I…I refused to go and then he threatened to hurt you, and now I…I'm not sure…I need you to be safe," her voice wavered as she looked to her friend for understanding.

Catherine looked shocked. "Nadia…he can't…he would never hurt me," she began. "Just today he kindly walked me to class and told me that his best friend Abraxas wanted to ask me to the dance! And he carried my things, and said that he thought you were a lovely person, and he wanted to ask you to go with him so that we could all go together and—"

"Did you hear _anything_ I just told you Cat?" her voice was higher, more strained. "He didn't _ask _me, he commanded me, and threatened you, and put his filthy hands all over me in trying to make his point!" She was breathing rapidly now, aggravated at her friend's naivety, and she stood up to look down at her. "We can't go. Let's not go. Let's—you and I—have a night to ourselves, in a safe place, where they can't reach us or touch us or—"

"Nadia, it's my last year at Hogwarts! You've got to be crazy if you think I wouldn't go to the Winter Ball! And I _don't_ know what happened tonight, but I know you drive him crazy and maybe he's having trouble dealing with those emotions…"

"Dealing with _emotions_?" she nearly shrieked. She dropped the blanket from her shoulders, revealing her barely covered body, staring angrily at her friend. "Someone who has issues dealing with emotions is NOT someone who grabs you, tears at your clothes, sexually _assaults_ you and nearly bites off your lip! He's in touch with his emotions, his sick, twisted, perverse emotions! He's fully cognizant of his desire to control and dominate and kill, and here you are defending him as if he was some hopeless adolescent!"

Cat looked down at her hands. "He's an intense person, you know," she said quietly. "He has ways of dealing with things differently than others. Maybe he's angry because he just can't figure out why you won't give him the benefit of the doubt."

"Because there _is_ no doubt, Cat. He's a monster. And it's clear that he's managed to brainwash this entire fucking school, including you, into thinking otherwise. If you want to walk blindly to your death, then fine, that's your choice. Because I swear, if you accept his little sidekick's invitation to the dance, they'll have something planned for you and I both, something that cannot possibly have the happy ending you're hoping for." She stared into her friend's stubborn blue eyes, then angrily turned to leave.

She sat on the edge of her bed, breathing rapidly in frustration. At least she'd warned her, she told herself. How could you save a girl who's so blind to the destructive path she's following? What else could Nadia have possibly done? The thought of hexes, curses, anything that could keep them both locked in the dormitory crossed her mind. But he'd probably find a way, she thought. Worse yet, she had no guarantee that he'd leave Catherine alone even if she _did _go with him. An American idiom she so often heard in Western films came to mind; damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Her bed looked inviting, but she felt impelled to shower first. She had to wash off his hands, his smell, his unnerving glare, the taste of his mouth; at the thought of their kiss she raised her hand to her lip, which had only recently stopped bleeding. She hated the taste of blood.

* * *

Tom licked his lips, excited by the bittersweet, metallic character of her blood. He loved the taste. It was so refreshing to finally have her in his control; he dwelled on the feeling of her lips, her soft thighs and luscious, full breasts, utterly tempted to go to her room at that moment and have the rest of her. It would certainly be a night to remember.

He was bothered, however, by her resistance. There was a certain pleasure in feeling like he truly dominated her, having her squirm and feebly fight against his strong body; at the same time, he wondered impatiently when she would relent and allow him to take her. It was twice now that he'd hurt her, yet she continued to be stubborn, to vocally insult him and physically fight against him. His desire to break her was elevated by the thought that perhaps, for some inexplicable reason, she was truly unbreakable.

For the time being, he knew he had to go back to the Head Boy's room and conjure the masterpiece she would wear for him. He knew exactly how it should look, how it would subtly expose the most delicate parts of her body, and the color…he must perfect the color before her blood, held carefully on his fingertips, darkened to an impure brown.

But what if she doesn't come, he thought to himself, slightly disturbed by the possibility. Yet he knew that if she spoke with Catherine tonight, she would discover how firm his grasp was; and if she chose to reject him, to risk denying him so boldly, Abraxas had his orders as to how to deal with her dearest friend. She would come, and they would dance, and he would hold her in his arms without being resisted; and then that night, he would take her, ravage her, and finally, after what seemed like an eternity, break her.


	7. Chapter 7

Nadia woke to the sound of high-pitched giggles coming from the common room.

"I can't believe it!"

"I was so sure he was going to ask Elizabeth Covington—isn't he only into purebloods or something?"

"Who cares! He's _soooo_ romantic…"

Fortunately she'd had the foresight to heal herself before going to bed, but her eyes were still painfully heavy with fatigue. Part of her already knew what the commotion outside was about, and that part of her was resolved to stay in her bedroom all day. But she also knew she would have to brush off the night before, face the day with courage, not show him—and them—that she was upset or even the least bit apprehensive.

After readying herself, Nadia stepped into the common room, being careful so as to avoid looking at the object her fellow Gryffindors were excitedly discussing and instead, searched the faces before her for Catherine.

She silently walked toward her, seeking some sort of expression of realization, regret or understanding. Cat turned her eyes downward, and asked to speak with her in private; they ascended the stairs to Catherine's room.

"Nadia," she said as they seated themselves on her bed, "I know that…we've both been through a lot, and it's taught us some really important things. We've learned to be strong, to be skeptical, to be aware of what's going on around us; with both our families in hiding, and ourselves having narrowly escaped, the last few years have made us…harder." Nadia nodded, patiently waiting for her to continue. Catherine swallowed. "It's just that…it's December now, and the Allies have already captured Paris and they're making their way to Strasbourg…we can allow ourselves to be optimistic, you know? It's been a long, tough journey but the general feeling is that it's coming to an end now—we'll be OK, they'll be OK, we'll get to see them soon…but you're not allowing yourself to feel that optimism—you're—you're just cold and cynical and worst of all, I don't know what's happened to your trust and…and your faith…"

Nadia stood up, turning to face the window and the world outside. The skies were a characteristic winter gray, the Forbidden Forest dark and spectral beneath the clouds. She turned her head slightly. "The war isn't over yet, Cat. And the reason…the reason why I won't allow myself to hope is because that's not the reality. Our families are still hidden. The moment they can leave and freely breathe the outside air and freely walk the familiar streets back home…that's when I'll be hopeful. There are rumors in the Muggle papers saying the Germans are planning something big, an offensive never to be forgotten…it's just…the war's not over yet." She turned to face her now, her eyes wide, her features stoic. "And as for my _trust_…I put my trust in many Cat, but I'll never put it in _him_. We've seen so many of these power-hungry twits, bent on domination and destruction, I would've thought you'd seen the same thing that I did—he doesn't have my trust because, quite simply, he's _untrustworthy_." She knelt down now, clasping Catherine's shaking hands in her own. "Please Cat, please have faith in me. We've seen everything that's happened and I'm telling you, he wants to repeat it in the wizarding world. The best thing we can do is keep our distance, and fight when the time comes." Her voice quavered; she felt so vulnerable at that moment, she was being so honest and hoping so earnestly that the one girl who'd lived through it all with her would be able to save herself.

Catherine stood up, her hands slipping out of Nadia's gentle hold. "I'm going with him," she said quietly, walking slowly to the door. "I'm—I'm sorry." The door shut lightly.

_I am too_, she thought sadly.

-----------

She waited a few minutes before leaving Catherine's room, and was disappointed to find that a few of her acquaintances were still waiting for her to discover (what they believed to be) a most gracious gift from Tom Riddle.

A number of red, fragrant rose petals encircled the silver box, as a note levitated above it, etched with golden ink: "_Nadia, be my date to the Winter Ball? Affectionately yours, Tom._"It was almost as if he was rubbing it in, having the audacity to ask her with a kind note as if she had a choice.

Persephone was ecstatic. "C'mon Nadia! Open it in front of us! I still can't _believe_ he asked you!"

"I mean, seriously, this has _got _to be the cutest thing I've ever seen," chimed in Laura.

"Don't get your hopes up girls, I wouldn't be surprised if it were a severed head. I think I'd rather just take it up to my room…" Nadia reached for the box, holding it lazily in her right hand.

"Oh no, please Nady just open it here! We've been dying to see it all morning!" Persephone was closer now, and Nadia pondered the possibility that the girl would actually block her from entering her room.

"Fine, whatever. Here." She shoved the box at her chest, encouraging her to open it. Persephone smiled and carefully removed the lid, lifting a most stunning gown in her hands.

The room was quiet. It glistened with the finest silk fabric, sleeveless and long with a narrow slit traveling up the left side to the mid-thigh. Nadia shuddered as she thought of the night before, when he tore her nightgown in a similar fashion. Cascading folds of silk came down across the front of the dress, plunging tantalizingly low at the chest, and thin straps arched over the shoulder to reveal a nearly backless gown. It was most certainly risqué, but classic and statuesque as well. The breathlessness that came over the young women in the room came not, however, from the style of the gown; it was the color that entranced them. A vibrant, pure red, unlike anything they'd seen, graced the shimmering fabric, seemingly pulsating with a life of its own. Nadia felt sick as she turned from the sight of it.

"It's…it's…incredible," Laura whispered softly. Others nodded in awe.

"Laura," Nadia cleared her throat, "can you, uh, put it in my room? I…I'm late for class." She felt like she was suffocating, forced to stare at the mark of ownership he intended her to wear, one which bore the very color of her blood. She had to leave immediately.

Skipping breakfast was hardly a good idea, but she didn't want to risk seeing him, or more specifically, the smug look of satisfaction on his face. She was glad to have Defense Against the Dark Arts that morning, a class she wished had been re-dubbed Defense Against Tom Riddle; in any case, it was a subject that always held her attention, perhaps because she so often dreamed of using the defensive spells they'd learned in a bold attempt to save her family from the fascist troops in France. It was still, sadly, just a dream.

Theodore Swidhelm, a charmingly warm-hearted seventh-year Ravenclaw, greeted her with a sincere smile as she entered the classroom. "I was hoping you'd be early Nady," he said, motioning for her to sit by him. They'd had many classes with each other over the last two years, and he'd always been kind enough to tolerate her initial difficulty with English and study with her from time to time when she needed the extra help. He had such a benign manner, she thought to herself as she cheerily approached him: it reminded her of her father.

He stood in front of the desk and hugged her hello, embracing her lightly in his lean arms. "I hear we're beginning a series of lectures on the Unforgivable Curses today," he said excitedly, his crystal blue eyes gleaming in the morning light. "I'm particularly curious about the Imperius Curse—it's beyond me how one could be so cruel as to fully control the life of another…to rid them of choice…that's just…well, you know, the philosophers talk about it all the time. It's commonly believed that to live without choice is worse than death."

"Yeah, tell me about it," Nadia said, sitting back down on the workbench. "But c'mon, let's not dwell on the dark stuff yet. What's been going on with you? I feel like I haven't talked to you in ages!"

"I know, I know," he said, looking down at the bench and shaking his head. "It's all the N.E.W.T.-level classes I'm taking, they're really killing me." He looked up at her suddenly, his dirty-blonde hair falling across his softened features. "But it looks like I have more time this winter, to, you know, relax…and I…well, I wanted to know," he cleared his throat. "Will you go to the Winter Ball with me?"

Nadia's mouth fell ajar as she looked at him with worry. "I…" She lowered her eyes to her hands, a series of thoughts running through her mind. Catherine had been warned, and ignored her words—she'd made her choice, and Nadia couldn't do anything about it.

_Oh, but you could, darling. Trust me, you do not want to know what will happen to her if you accept that twit's offer. _

She gasped aloud. She'd let her defenses down for a moment and Tom entered her mind with ease. Theodore looked confused, trying to read the conflicting expressions on her face.

_Don't test me, Nadia. You know I never fail to…deliver._

She closed her eyes and breathed out in frustration. "Theo I'm—I'm so sorry…I would've really enjoyed going with you but…"

"You've already been asked." He shared a muted smile, looking down at the floor.

"It's really not like that, I don't want to go with him—at all—I mean, I'd really much rather not go—" she grew discontented in trying to explain herself.

He laughed lightly, raising his hands to her shoulders. "Calm down Nady, it's fine—you at least going to tell me who he is?"

She arched her head to the sky and groaned. "Oh God, that's the worst part. It's Tom. The most pitiful and sleazy bastard at this school." She shook her head, avoiding the pained look in his eyes.

_Oh come now, I'm not that bad…_

"You know," she said playfully, knowing just how to enrage the unwelcome voice in her head, "I really look at it as more of a charity thing. I'm saving some poor girl from having to tolerate his arrogance all night." Theo laughed, bringing his hands to hold hers. "Theo, it's just a night. It's not like I'm spending the rest of my life with the guy. How about a date next week, maybe in Hogsmeade?"

"That sounds…wonderful," he said softly, his tone rising optimistically.

"Then it's a date." She leaned in to hug him, and turned her face to his, shyly pressing her lips against his cheek. When she pulled away she was still in his arms, his kind blue eyes staring deeply into hers. "Theo…" she said quietly as he drew closer to her, kissing her delicately. She felt a warmth that was painfully absent from the kiss last night, a tenderness that lifted her from the daily blackness that colored her life.

They quickly pulled away from each other as other students filed into the room, but their hands still touched beneath the desk. She noticed with relief that the voice in her head had seemingly disappeared. Sadly, she knew its absence signified that much worse was to come.


	8. Chapter 8

Nadia managed to attend the rest of her classes with minimal bother from Tom; he had been strangely silent that day, and though she mused that he was probably thinking of the manner in which he'd kill her, she was grateful for the quietude. Her thoughts, oddly enough, did not focus on him or the horrifying prospect of being his rag-doll at the Winter Ball; they drifted back to her parents, from whom she'd heard nothing in the last two weeks. She wondered if their owl was caught, but if this were the case, it would betray their location—she quickly brushed the thought aside, hoping they'd become busy and didn't have time to write at the moment.

Upon entering her room she was shocked at the sight of yet another twisted gift, a pair of lacy black silk undergarments lying on her pillow. _For your transgressions this morning_, the note that accompanied it read. As soon as she bent down to pick up the parchment, the black ink disappeared, and another sentence followed: _Wear them underneath the dress, else you'll find them stuffed down the throat of Catherine's corpse_. The writing suddenly disappeared, leaving the blank note in Nadia's clenched fist. She tore it in half and threw the crumpled paper at the wall, disgusted by his bold words. How much longer would he try to threaten her like this? Didn't he have better things to do? She breathed in resignedly and sat on her bed. The Ball was three days away; she had a lot of work to do.

----------------

Tom could not quite comprehend the rage that overcame him as he explored Nadia's mind that morning. He felt what she felt, he saw what she saw; and none of it was to his liking. She bubbled with warmth and tenderness, she looked at the boy with longing and regret…she was always so audacious in her behavior, yet she'd been so calm around him, demure and sensitive. The boy had broken down her rough exterior with nothing but awkward glances and amateur compliments; Tom scoffed at the possibility that he, the most powerful young wizard in his time, couldn't do the same. She would bear her soul to him, he knew. Even if he had to rip her apart to see it.

-----------------

The day of the Winter Ball, the students of Hogwarts were utterly frenzied. Even those who weren't involved in orchestrating the affair seemed to be noticeably excited at the prospect of throwing their robes aside and allowing their adolescent hormones dictate the events of the night.

Two young souls, however, shared different sentiments: one was looking forward to the Ball, but for reasons that he couldn't quite explain; the other was dreading it, for reasons she could certainly elucidate.

"Please tell me you're wearing that _under _your real dress," Nadia crossed the floor of the Gryffindor common room to assess the revealing black garment hanging off of Persephone Middlebrook's body. "Seph, this is 1944 you know. There are boys who'll have a heart attack when they see you wearing that."

"Then whatever will happen when they see _you _in that sexy red number Tom gave you?" Persephone smiled, looking at Nadia's reflection in the mirror.

"I'm guessing they'll do what I was inclined to when I saw it—vomit." She smirked as Persephone hit her teasingly with a piece of fabric. At that moment Catherine entered the room, and Nadia fell quiet. Turning to Persephone, she nodded her head and made her way across the floor to leave the commons. Her jaw clenched in restraint as she passed her friend in silence, but the meaning in her action was not lost on Catherine. It was her fault, her naïveté which forced Nadia to be another's twisted toy for the night; and though the prospect of dancing with Tom Riddle was certainly not offensive, the notion that he would be parading her as _his_, as some sort of possession to be used and disposed of at will, was unbearable.

The afternoon light was welcome on her skin as she strolled the halls; it was an unusually cold winter day, but the sun still shone brightly. As her thoughts drifted through memories and ponderings, she found herself on the very same staircase on which she had been so coldly assaulted mere weeks ago. She jumped at the sound of the low voice behind her.

"Could've sworn we didn't have class today Nady," Theodore came up the stairs, meeting her on the step where she stood. "But I guess this is typical behavior from an overachiever." He smiled at her, his blue eyes glistening with warmth.

"Sure Theo—look who's talking!" She rolled her eyes, and leaned against the wall behind her. "But this does beg the question…what are you doing up here anyway?"

"Same thing as you, I imagine. Just to get away from the craziness that's overtaking our school. And," he inched closer to her, "I happened to see a beautiful girl going up the stairs, and couldn't help but follow her." She smiled shyly as he leaned in, lightly pressing his lips to hers. He reached an arm to her waist, and his hand crept between curls of black hair to hold her face close to his, deepening the kiss, allowing their tongues to touch.

Nadia wrapped her arms around his neck as their bodies came closer; she enjoyed the lightness of his touches and kisses. But she suddenly became aware of the cold wall behind her, and as she opened her eyes she saw Tom Riddle holding her tightly, his emerald eyes piercing hers, his lips pressed against her own and his hands covetously exploring her skin. She gasped audibly and pulled back, dropping her arms and clenching the cold stone behind her.

"Nadia—what—what's wrong?" Theodore stepped back, looking at her worriedly. She frantically searched his face with her eyes, trying desperately to understand what she had just felt and seen. There was no sign of him.

"I—I'm sorry, I just…" She couldn't think of any excuse that would explain the look of revulsion on her face when she pulled away from him. "I just…want to take it slow. Sometimes I get carried away, Theo, and it makes things…it devalues what we have together." She didn't know if he'd believe the line she'd so often heard in romance films from America, but she moved closer to him now, a sigh escaping her lips. "You mean more to me than that. We have a while to figure things out, you know? There's no rush."

Theodore nodded, and gave an understanding smile. "I'll see you tonight then?"

"Of course." She kissed him lightly on the cheek.

"Save a dance for me," he said while walking down the stairs, his voice echoing in the tower. Her stomach constricted as a feeling of regret washed over her. _I doubt I'll be able to_, she thought. She felt like she'd spent hours in the tower, staring at the world outside. All of it was so uncertain; tonight was trivial, it was nothing, just one play in Tom's bid for power—but the rest of the world, the Allies' progress in the war, Grindelwald's fanaticism, the future that lay ahead after she graduated—these events were rife with ambiguity. A breeze poured through the open window, enveloping her body, sending chills down her spine. She closed her eyes.

When she felt a pair of hands on her shoulders, she fell back into the world around her, remembering the soft touches of the boy whom she'd grown fond of. "Did you come back for more, Theo or—"

"Don't insult me like that," Tom said huskily, his cold, long fingers traveling down her slender arms. "I should never be confused with that little prat."

Nadia turned suddenly, facing the young man who just moments before she thought she'd been willingly kissing. "You'll harass me tonight, so there's really no reason to bother me right now." She knew that breaking from his stare was a sign of weakness to him, so she raised her chin defiantly and continued to focus on the spot just betwixt his two piercing eyes.

"Ah, so I have my answer. You'll be my date then." His lip curled in self-satisfaction, and though she raised her arms to fight against his, he managed to pull her closer. "It'll be such a lovely affair. Do be sure Catherine manages to make it."

Her eyes darkened immediately. "You promised not to hurt her if I agreed to go with you, Tom. I need to know that you were sincere in our arrangement." She noticed that he seemed excited by her serious tone, and his grip tightened.

"Yes, our arrangement," he began, pulling her closer until she could feel his chest pressed against hers. He lowered his mouth to her ear. "What happens between Catherine and Abraxas will be her choice. Aside from that, no harm that she doesn't bring upon herself will come to her." He then kissed her neck, but delicately; the ravenous hunger for her flesh which characterized their last few encounters was noticeably absent, and Nadia was conflicted in her reaction. Her hands fell from his arms as he continued to explore her skin with his mouth; when he reached her collarbone, he held her body tightly and she felt a soft sound escape her throat. "Stop," she whispered. She raised her hand to his chest and pushed back lightly, bringing her eyes to meet his. "Tom…what do you want?"

He looked down at her, the only girl he'd ever been honest with, and decided to relate a parcel of truth. "I want you to know that…" he bent down to whisper in her ear, "…I've noticed your mind is an open book when you're kissed with tenderness, and I have very much so enjoyed learning about you, Nadia. And I've…" he raised his hand to the back of her head, forcefully pressing her ear to his lips, "…I've _really _enjoyed stirring up images and memories of me when you try and lose yourself in the arms of others." He pulled away from her before she could process his words, smiling as he descended the steps of the tower.

----------------

A/N: The Winter Ball will most certainly be covered in the next chapter. My apologies for delays.


	9. Chapter 9

The big band sounds of Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Glenn Miller pulsated through the Great Hall, as a river of glass snowflakes cascaded down the walls and danced just beneath the ceiling. Blue lights swirled along the floors, giving one the feeling of walking through an icy landscape, but the warmth of towering pine trees adorned with vanilla-scented candles and sparkling silver ornaments made the atmosphere more grand than isolating.

Nadia was careful to arrive at the ball neither too early nor too late. She desired to make as subtle an entrance as possible, but she knew that the breathtakingly suggestive gown that Tom had ordered her to wear would not allow for it. The only place she could enter inconspicuously, she mused, would be a brothel.

It pained her to have to stick pins in her hair, wear high heels and put on maquillage for _him_; in fact, she'd seriously considered enacting some sort of spell to make herself absolutely hideous for the night, just to vex him. But she also knew that an angry Tom was an unpredictable and vicious Tom, who could order the most ruthless spells for Abraxas to perform on Catherine—not to mention what he would do to _her_ too. She finally decided to ready herself properly, but in the back of her mind she promised that it would be for Theodore Swidhelm, not Tom Riddle.

She'd always been fond of Theodore, pleased by his calm and gentle demeanor; her whole life she'd dealt with aggressiveness and impudence, and Theo presented something different, something she actually wanted to be close to. She knew she had to be careful around him, however, as Tom would likely use her time of emotional weakness to delve into her mind and memory; he was trying to find ways of controlling her even when he wasn't around, and as this notion crossed her mind she felt genuinely frightened.

Nadia chose to descend the steps of the Great Hall with a few friends by her side, hoping this would divert attention from her presence. But the vibrancy of her red dress seemed to scream for recognition, a blood-colored magnet that pulled at the eyes of all, drawing awestruck stares from students and faculty alike. And directly in front of her, at the center of the Hall, surrounded by giggling girls whose eyes secretly penetrated her with envy, stood Tom Riddle. He was indisputably debonair, exuding a cool confidence in a perfectly pressed black suit, and a black, silk collared shirt; Nadia shivered when she glimpsed the striking, violently red rose affixed to his pocket. His hair was parted perfectly, as always, and as he raised his flawlessly angled face to meet hers his emerald eyes flashed with carnal desire.

She did not flinch as she stood under his intense gaze; instead she descended to meet him with grace, the red silk of her dress parting with every step to reveal pieces of her smooth, dark flesh to her unwavering watcher. Tom clenched his jaw in silence as he looked at her, troubled by the conflicting visions that played through in his mind: there was a part of him that felt the need to gently stroke and kiss every part of her immaculate being, taking time to savor its beauty; and then there was the desire to tie her delicate wrists to the wall, watching them bleed as her small body squirmed beneath him, fighting with vigor as his thrusts grew harder, deeper. He breathed in deeply as she approached him, and extended his hand to greet hers.

"You look—"

"I don't see Catherine here. What have you done with her." She didn't so much ask as demand, digging her fingers into his hand.

"Not quite the _proper_ way to greet your date, but if you must know," he began, pulling her arm toward him, "she and Abraxas have ventured onto the balcony, where I believe he is picking a rose for her to don in her hair as we speak." He lowered his face to hers, smiling for those watching as he whispered harshly. "Don't _ever_ disrespect me like that again."

Nadia sneered defiantly but followed him as he led her to the back of the hall, where few students lingered near the refreshments. He turned to face her suddenly, and reached his arm to her exposed back, tracing down the curve of her spine before lightly inching his fingers beneath her gown. She breathed in sharply; his hands were always so cold, but pulsed excitedly as they traced over the lace of her undergarments.

"Well done, my dear," he said, brushing his lips to her ear. "I'm sure it'll be an even more pleasing sight than the dress."

She turned her face away from his, searching the room for Theodore. _You wore them for him_, she thought to herself. It made the prospect of being on display slightly more tolerable. She looked back at him, her eyes blackened with resentment. "You know, for someone who continues to characterize me as _filth_, you have an awfully noticeable tendency to get your hands quite _dirty_."

He gave a wry smile as he rested his arms around her petite waist. "You have to get your hands dirty if you want to make it to the top, Nadia. You're just playing your small part in a much grander scheme, serving as…oh, how should I put it…practice." He tightened his grip, but she didn't waver.

"Why don't you practice on someone your own size, Tom? I'm just a little girl," she said mockingly. "You could certainly better spend your efforts on a more worthwhile target."

He pulled her body to his, searching her face intently; her lips quivered and he noticed how hard she was trying to not break her stare. _Please don't kiss me. I hate it when you kiss me_. As her thoughts flooded his mind Tom released her from his hold; he lowered his eyes to the ground and bit his bottom lip in irritation.

"You're the most worthwhile target there is, Nadia, because…because you're the only one who realizes that you're actually being targeted." He met her gaze again. "They follow me like sheep, all of them," he said, spreading his arms in an effort to illustrate the expanse of his adherents. "I can do whatever I want to them, with them, and they don't even realize the extent of my manipulations, nor the power I truly wield." He turned back to her, raising his hands to embrace her shivering shoulders. "But you do. You won't let me forget it, either. And my mind will not be at ease until…until I…"

"Torture me? Rape me? Kill me?" She let out a light laugh, turning to face the dance floor. But her tone suddenly grew somber. "So what then, Tom? You kill me, and maybe a few other students you deem unworthy for the pureblood goal—and then what? When do you exceed the boundaries of this game you're playing, when do you start to move on to murder on a grander scale?" She looked at him again with a pained expression in her eyes, stepping forward in hopes that her words would resonate in his mind. "What do you get out of it, in the end?"

He paused for a moment, and his eyes glistened in response. "Power. I will gain power as they learn to fear me."

She nodded her head in solemn understanding. They all wanted power. "You're truly no different than the rest." Maybe that's his twisted way of fitting in, she thought. Striving for the same depraved goal as everyone else, just on an entirely different scale.

Tom was bothered by her words; he felt insulted at the prospect that he was similar to all the other unworthy sheep around him, and he further resented that _she _was the one to articulate it. _As if she were above it_, he thought to himself. He took in several deep breaths as he felt a familiar anger swelling in his chest. She was looking at the dance floor now, pretending as if he didn't exist, her arms crossed modestly over her bosom. At first he was intrigued by her uncanny insight, her ability to see through his obsequious pretenses; but now it aggravated him, and instead he found himself growing increasingly obsessed with her unwillingness to yield to him. He was troubled by the notion that the most brilliant wizard of them all couldn't force this wretched little girl to succumb.

Etta James's voice broke the silence between them, smooth and melodic as she sang _At Last_. "Dance with me," he said, holding her hand tightly as he lead her to the center of the room. He placed his hand properly on the small of her back as her right arm extended with his left. He looked down at her, the scent of jasmine filling his senses as he pulled her closer. She, however, kept glancing to her left, refusing to meet his eyes. "Regardless of how we ended up here together, Nadia, you can't possibly deny the beauty of this night."

_My lonely days…are over…and life is like a song… _

She looked at him sharply. "There's nothing beautiful in what I see right now."

He smiled. "So damn impertinent all the time. Why can't you just…_relax_?" He pulled her closer now, and the thin layer of fabric that separated them made them both very aware of the heat emanating from their bodies. The velvet voice of Etta James continued to drift through the room.

_I found a dream…that I could speak to…a dream that I can call my own…_

"How can I relax in the arms of a monster, Tom? I _despise _people like you, I _loathe _having to be near you…and I wish you'd just…leave me alone, move onto other things, more important things. I don't see how I could possibly be of use to you, or what exactly your obsession is with me." She looked down as her eyebrows rose, knowing that the effect of her next remark would be difficult for Tom to conceal. "Or maybe you just can't get enough of your little _Mudblood_, Tom, maybe you realize that as a half-blood yourself, you actually have a preference, an irresistible attraction to 'our kind.'" She met his eyes now with a muted smile, wondering how he would react in such a public place.

_I found a thrill…to press my cheek to…a thrill that I…have never known, oh you smile, you smile…and then the spell was cast…_

Tom's nostrils flared in anger, and his upper lip quivered as seething rage crawled through his body. He dug his nails into her hand and waist, to the point that he was confident he would draw blood from her; through clenched teeth he whispered harshly. "Your _kind_ are the scum of the Earth, as are you, and we will vanquish every last one of you, destroy you, burn your homes and murder your children, torture you until you can no longer speak…" He dropped his hand from hers and raised it to grip her face, forcing her eyes to look into his. "If it's the last thing I do, Nadia, I will _break you_."

_And here we are, in heaven…and you are mine…AT LAST…_

Aware of how odd their stance looked to the dancing couples who surrounded them, Tom relaxed his grip and moved his hand to the back of her head, gently pulling her to him in an obscenely insincere kiss, a show for the other students to regard in awe and jealousy. Nadia immediately tried pushing away, but she felt her arms being pulled by some invisible force as they wrapped themselves affectionately around his neck; her eyes widened in shock as she realized that he was using wandless, silent magic to control her body's movements. As the music grew more upbeat, Tom finally released her, and she looked at him in disgust.

"How could you—how—why would you do such a thing?! You bastard, you filthy, fucking bastard," she breathed rapidly, holding her arms defiantly at her sides, angered at the twisted smile spreading across his face.

"Now now, Nadia, no reason to get so upset…I just thought that the timing," he said as he stepped closer to her, raising his hands to grip her shoulders and turn her around, "was perfect." She initially recoiled at his touch, but froze as she saw the wounded expression on the face of Theodore Swidhelm, his mouth agape in confusion. She saw him swallow uncomfortably, and turn to walk away. "Theo…" she whispered. Tom's arms were now wrapped around her body, his muscular chest pressed to her back, and she felt nauseous. "Let go of me."

Tom knew there was hardly a thing she could do to convince Theo that she was forced to kiss him; and he further knew that he would have to share some dances with the other frivolous females in order to keep up appearances. So he released her from his arms, watching her intently as she quickly made her way out of the hall in a vain attempt to win back the affections of her dear friend. He would attend to her later.

Before Nadia had a chance to leave the hall, however, a tall figure nearly crashed into her. She raised her eyes to Professor Dumbledore, who bore an unfamiliar look on his face, a look of worry, of disquietude.

"Ms. Khalil," he said quietly. He took her arm to lead her into the hallway. "My dear, I…I am glad to have found you." He looked down at her and swallowed painfully. "There is an urgent matter we must discuss, if you'll…if you'll please join me in my office."

"Yes—yes, of course," she said, nodding in assent. She followed him down the hall, removing her shoes so as to be able to keep up with his rapid pace. Was it about Tom? She racked her brain for an answer to explain her professor's unusual behavior. Perhaps he'll ask me to keep close to him, she thought, to keep tabs on him, and make sure that the faculty is aware of whatever macabre events he's planned. But her heart sank as another thought entered her mind, and trickles of sweat emerged from her forehead as she slowed her pace. "Professor," she said softly, her voice uneven. "Please…I need to know…does this concern my family?"

Dumbledore slowly turned to face her, his eyebrows pressed together in worry. He nodded solemnly.

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	10. Chapter 10

After a swift search through Hogwarts' main halls, Tom Riddle was overcome by a vaguely familiar emotion, though it was one he thought he'd subverted long ago: confusion. He came across the blubbering weakling Swidhelm early on in his search; his raw emotions, though displeasing to Tom's eyes, were important for realizing that Nadia had not, after all, managed to comfort him. He passed by Abraxas in the stairwell, his arms reluctantly wrapped around Catherine's eager waist, a noticeable resentment directed toward Tom reflected in his pale eyes. He came upon several Slytherin sixth-years, giggling next to the entrance of the commons, anticipating some late-night rendezvous with young men who, Tom thought, should really know better. He saw them all, the misfits, his followers, the romantics hoping for as little as a kiss to end the night, he passed through a sea of faces inside the ballroom and beyond; but Nadia was nowhere to be found. It wasn't until he reached the prefects' bathroom, atop several flights of stairs, that he felt his search may come to an end.

Professor Albus Dumbledore raised his eyes to Tom, a worried look etched into his features. He assumed a stoic expression, however, before beginning to speak. "Thomas, though I understand your concern for your date, it would be best to leave her at this time."

"I will do no such thing." Tom stepped forward defiantly, an uncanny urge to provoke the wise professor motivating his boldness. He felt the same dislike for Dumbledore that he felt for Nadia, an obsessive hatred that stemmed from their unwillingness to obey him, and an ability to understand his motives that was all too close for comfort.

Dumbledore maintained an unwavering glare, and stood tall before him. "The girl is…ill, Tom," he said sternly. "Whatever _plans _you had for tonight will have to wait. Go back to the ball, or to your quarters. You may see her tomorrow."

"I don't know who you think you—" Tom was suddenly interrupted by the most unpleasant sound of heaving reverberating through the halls; she was vomiting violently, frequently and, from the sound of it, uncontrollably. He felt uneasy all of a sudden, at a loss for words; mere minutes earlier she had been perfectly healthy, and as he spent every moment with her, he knew she hadn't eaten anything at the ball. "What…what's going on?" The miserable feeling of confusion crept through his mind.

"I told you, Thomas, she's ill. If you want to be of some use, follow through with your duties as Head Boy and go summon Madame Eloise from the hospital wing." Dumbledore stood firmly in front of the door, and though Tom was impelled to question his authority, Dumbledore's appeal to his responsibility as Head Boy did present him with the option of looking like a hero for the night. His pride and desire to maintain appearances seemed to temporarily win over his curiosity as he set off to find Madame Eloise.

Dumbledore cringed at the sound of her labored breathing; he had put his hand on the doorknob several times in the last forty minutes, but in an effort to respect her desire for solitude he refrained from entering. Now, however, after hearing her bodily convulsions grow increasingly violent, that he felt the need to intervene.

He saw her sprawled on the white marble floor, her red silk dress falling from her shoulders, streaks of pitch-black mascara dripping down her reddened face; her eyes were swollen with tears, and as she looked up at him she began to weep.

"Child," he said softly, bending down to meet her bloodshot eyes. Her breaths were uneven and rapid, and her hands shook uncontrollably.

"I ca—I ca—I can't—" She squeezed tears from her eyes, struggling to speak between her rapid breaths, but she couldn't find her voice. Suddenly Dumbledore saw her face grow pallid, and she turned to scurry toward the toilets. Her retching was louder now, and drier, for there was nothing left but a scorching acid in her painfully empty stomach. Dumbledore advanced to where she sat, gently placing his hand to her forehead to steady her; but he almost let go in shock when he saw blood spill from her lips.

The process of grieving was painful, and could not bring peace unless one underwent the physical aching that accompanied it. But Dumbledore could not refrain from doing something to calm her before she damaged her body irrevocably; he raised his wand with his left hand and pointed it at the back of her head, silently letting her fall into a bewitched slumber.

At that moment, Tom entered the bathroom with Madame Eloise, stopping suddenly as he saw Dumbledore carrying Nadia's limp body in his arms. Dumbledore ignored his look of irreverence, approaching the witch and speaking sternly. "Madame, she has consumed some sort of poison, either by food or water; she has managed to expel most of it from her body but could not deal well with the violent after-effects. Please put her in your care until she wakes from my spell, and ensure that she eats properly." As Madame Eloise nodded, Tom stepped forward boldly.

"Excuse me Professor, but that assessment is, quite simply, _highly _improbable. I was with her for most of the night, and earlier today, and she had absolutely nothing that could've been tainted as everyone else ate the same food; if she's sick, then they ought to be sick too—"

"Of course, Thomas. But this was no mistake; I believe this to be a deliberate act of malice." He met Tom's stare with an uncharacteristic ferocity in his blue eyes.

"That's out of the question. What student could possibly have motive to do such a thing, I hardly think that—"

"Perhaps it would be best, Thomas, if you ask these questions to a few of your…_close_… friends. I'm sure they would know far more than I concerning this matter." He let his pale eyes linger on Tom's shocked features for a moment, then turned to follow Madame Eloise to the hospital wing.

Tom turned his head to watch them leave, feeling a tenseness build in his limbs. He doubted any of his followers could deceive him like that, but perhaps, in light of how he would disparage her in front of them, they thought they were doing him a favor by ridding of her. After all, she was filth. At least, that's what he told them.

And he'd believed it too, right up until he saw her limp, ashen body hanging lifelessly in Dumbledore's arms.

-------------

It was a most unusual slumber for Nadia, as events and visions from the last hour blended with desires and images from a future she wished to be true. She saw the blood-stained letter quite plainly in her shaking hands:

_Nadia, they came through our town, they've started a horrific offensive that's encompassing all of the Ardennes. Your mother and father were found in the basement of our home while we were at the market, we cannot return now but there is no sign of them, Nadia I don't think they are alive, fidwa, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry for not taking them away from here, I'm so sorry, I love you, please forgive me, stay safe, I love you _

Her aunt's handwriting was unkempt, rushed, as if she scrawled it on the only parchment she had before fleeing for refuge. And then Nadia's breaths became not her own, for she was removed from her body as she re-read these terrifying words, and they came with increased rapidity; and then she briefly met the worried blue eyes in front of her before a blackness veiled her mind.

And when she woke, she convulsed with panic on the floor of his office, and felt a sudden sickness rise within her, consuming her; she lost her mind and voice and breath and ran from the room, with no conception of where she was or how to escape, stumbling at last into a white marble room where she released her pain in bouts of violent retching.

The sickening memory then blended into an alarmingly powerful fantasy. She was calm and confident, walking boldly down the streets of France with nothing but a dark robe draped around her shoulders. She had a hunger that was insatiable, a hunger for their blood and pain; upon seeing them before her, laughing and drinking outside, relating stories of rape and murder in their thick German tongue, she raised her wand and smiled. Their weapons flew from their arms, melting in front of her as the smell of gunpowder flooded the air; and her smile grew wider as she saw their bodies rise in the air, screaming in pain from the Unforgivable Curse she had laid upon them. She began to laugh, softly at first, then uncontrollably, as she flicked her wand from left to right, watching the skin around their necks tear in precisely that manner; they bled like livestock hanging from invisible hooks. Her laughing grew maniacal as she watched the blood pool below their twitching bodies.

It was during this vivid fantasy that Nadia callously left behind a piece of her blameless soul. It was during this vision that she realized she wanted nothing more than to find her mother and father, dead or alive, and exact revenge on those who had torn such a cavernous hole in her heart; she resolved to fill it with hate.

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A/N: I wrote a few chapters of this story that were supposed to happen later, which in retrospect was a horrible idea, as now the story is going somewhere that I didn't anticipate. I guess the most I can say about these two characters is that, simply, their needs are evolving…I appreciate all the reviews so far and encourage you to keep on informing me of your thoughts.


	11. Chapter 11

Nadia woke to the smell of buttered toast, and opened her eyes to greet a wrinkled yet jovial face before her.

"Dear girl, you haf been asleep for almost a day now, _mon Dieu! _I was worried you would never wake from zis sleep!" Madame Eloise bent down at her bedside, using her left hand to prop her up with a pillow and holding the plate of toast with her right. Though feeling no urge to eat, Nadia knew it was a necessity, and smiled kindly as she took the toast in her hands. "Thank—thank you," she whispered, struggling to clear her throat. Everything seemed hazy; the brightness of the sun reflecting off of the white hospital sheets overwhelmed her, as did the image of several figures making their way to where she sat.

"Zey made me promise to let zem see you when you woke up," the old woman smiled, reaching her fingers to comb the stray black hairs away from Nadia's pale face. "You 'ave such nice friends, you know," she added.

Nadia breathed in deeply, raising her hand to Madame Eloise's arm in protest. "No, I—I can't right now, I just…" She felt suddenly tired, unable to articulate her thoughts without lapsing into a mild vertigo. She decided it would be best to stay quiet and eat her toast. Catherine, Persephone and Lauren approached her bedside, as Professor Dumbledore followed closely behind.

"Nady, God, we were so scared when we heard that you were ill!" Catherine sat immediately at her side, they way she did on the couch back in the Gryffindor common room late at night. "I'm so sorry for causing you any worry, Nady, I really am. I'm sorry for everything," she whispered, leaning her head to Nadia's chest, embracing her frail body.

Nadia rested her hand on Catherine's back, patting it as gently as she could. "I know—it's—it's okay," she said softly. Lauren and Persephone, kneeling by her side, looked up at her pleadingly, and Lauren was the first to speak. "Nadia, what—what do you think happened?"

Her lips parted for a moment as she met their eyes, but hesitated; she looked above them, into a pair of blue orbs that returned her gaze with honesty. For a brief moment, she saw herself reflected in Professor Dumbledore's eyes, pale, weak, an object of pity and gossip for the young women around her. And in that moment, she saw exactly who she wanted to be. She would tell them nothing of what happened; it was her secret, her burden, her painful rite of passage. Seeking retribution would be a solitary task.

"I…I—I don't know." She looked down at her hands, which Catherine now held in her own. "The only thing I can think of is…" She paused, realizing how distant she felt at that moment. She was a shell of a being, she could hardly feel the sheets that pressed against her body, she could hardly hear the voices of those she called her friends. She was acting now. "Divination—the tea leaves from Divination, I had class earlier that day and I think I must've gotten a bad batch. I mean, it's been known to happen from time to time." The girls nodded solemnly, seemingly imbibing her fictitious story. It was hard at first, to lie to them like that, to feign the mannerisms and emotions that came with story-telling; but she would get better at it. It was just another subject she had to master.

"That's just awful Nadia. I mean, you'd think the Ministry could start regulating that stuff strictly, you know? I hear firewhiskey businesses are having the same issue," Persephone began, standing up from where she knelt. "There're people who are brewing that junk in bathtubs—I mean, really, bathtubs!—and it's just flooding the market because they think they can make a profit, and then look what happens—people get really ill! It's just awful." Nadia feigned understanding, but as the girls chatted casually she raised her eyes to Dumbledore. He looked disappointed, almost worried as his eyebrows pressed together questioningly.

She closed her eyes for a moment, then returned to his gaze: _I'll be okay. I'm just not ready to tell them yet. _She directed her thoughts to him, and he nodded slightly.

_I hope you do, Nadia. It only grows more agonizing when one lets these things build inside. It can even change you_. He smiled at the girls and quietly bade goodbye, then turned to leave the ward.

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Tom Riddle disliked the feeling of losing control. He enjoyed his life at Hogwarts because he controlled the attitude of the general populace toward him; he enjoyed learning because he read material of his choosing; he enjoyed sex because, aside from it being a primal necessity, he dominated the movements of his partners without their complaint or objection. But Nadia, and her recent bout of illness, was completely out of his hands, and it was precisely for this reason that he sought the company of Catherine Adèle that afternoon.

"Cat," he called, practically running into her as she exited the dining room. A plate of packaged food nearly escaped her arms as she looked up at him. "Sorry if I've startled you—I just…I just wanted to know how she's doing." He furrowed his brow and stared at her with sad eyes, hoping to look sincere; he didn't even bother trying to muster tears, for he long believed it to be an impossibility.

"Oh Tom, she looks awful," Catherine said in a quiet voice, shaking her head. "She's doing a bit better now that she's been able to eat something—I'm just rushing to get this meal to her before class starts—but the whole thing seems to have taken a bit of a toll on her. She thinks it's some sort of poisoning from a bad batch of tea leaves from Divination. Hopefully she'll be out of the ward by dinnertime though."

"Tea leaves?" he said skeptically, a fierceness returning to his eyes. "Poisoning from a Hogwarts-regulated teaching tool is more unlikely than getting hit by lighting in one's own bedroom! That's ludicrous, there must be another explanation. She's lying, she's got to be." He noticed the shocked expression on Catherine's face; he immediately sighed while placing his pale hands on her shoulders. "In any case, I'm _so _glad she's getting better…I don't know what I'd do without her…" he said, wearing a forlorn look on his face. "Catherine, let me see her—I'll take the food to her." He brought his piercing green eyes back to hers, squeezing her shoulders slightly.

"I—er, I don't know, I promised I would—"

"Please? You don't know how painful it was for me to see her last night, so sick and helpless—I just want to see her again, to…" He paused, adding emotion to his voice as he looked down modestly. "To tell her how I feel about her."

He saw Catherine's eyes widen as a shy smile graced her lips. "Of—of course, Tom. Tell her I'll see her tonight," she said as she handed him the plate of roasted chicken and rice. "And thanks, by the way, for being such a good friend to her." She removed his hands from her shoulders, squeezing one affectionately before heading down the hallway.

Tom let the smile linger on his face as he watched her leave; he felt genuine excitement at the prospect of seeing Nadia, though he knew it was probably due to curiosity more than anything else. The splenetic voice of Abraxas Malfoy interrupted his thoughts.

"So are you going to be her _nurse _now, Tom?"

The smile vanished from Tom's face as he spun around to greet a pair of empty blue eyes. "Abraxas," he rasped. "Whatever impelled you to believe you could question my actions?" His voice was deep, and seething with ire. "You cannot comprehend the plans I have for that Mudblood," he snarled, his face inches away from Malfoy's quivering features. "And until I'm finished with her, you will not dare _suggest_ that my intentions are anything other than those we'd originally discussed. Else I swear on the grave of Salazar Slytherin himself, you will have neither a voice nor tongue to _imply _such heresies."

"Y—yes my Lord," he said quietly, avoiding Tom's penetrating glare.

"Don't pretend to know me, Abraxas, and _never _underestimate me." His cold, dark eyes spoke volumes, and though skeptical, Malfoy remained silent. Tom straightened his robes, and looked down at his loyal follower. "We will have a meeting four days from now, at midnight, in the Room of Requirement. I'm preparing to teach the Cruciatus Curse, as well as several dark hexes; make sure the others know of the time and place." Malfoy nodded as Tom began ascending the steps to the hospital wing.

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Nadia had about two hours of unsettling sleep before she opened her eyes at the sound of Theodore Swidhelm's gentle voice.

"Nadia," he said softly. He wore a look of fatigue and worry as he pulled a chair to the side of her bed. "I heard from Lauren that…that you…"

She used her arms to pull herself up and bring her eyes level with his. "Theo, I'm okay, really," she said as she cleared her throat. "It was just something I ate, or drank…but I'm fine now, I am, I'm just waiting for Madame Eloise to discharge me so I can…" she wanted to say "scream" or "cry" or "run outside and disappear into the Forbidden Forest, shrieking like a lunatic, letting the wolves tear apart what's remaining of my unfeeling soul." These thoughts, indeed, illustrated the only thing that she could imagine herself doing once she left the ward. But she continued reciting the lines of the unfortunate play which would now be her life, and reprised her role as a kind and compassionate thespian. "So I can breathe some fresh air, and…and perhaps spend a bit of time with you."

Theo's eyes brightened immediately, and he smiled as he took her cold hands in his own. "I—I didn't know you still felt that way about me, Nady—I mean, you and Tom, at the Ball, I just, well I just figured you must've liked him to kiss him like that."

She'd nearly forgotten about that incident; it seemed so insignificant now as she thought about it, but she still felt it important to explain herself. She looked at him earnestly through her light brown eyes and swallowed. "Theo…trust me, that kiss was not my choice. He's obsessed with controlling me for whatever reason, and he used some sort of silent incantation to hold me there like that, and—"

"Nady you don't have to make such excuses, it's ok, it really is. I mean, sometimes it's easy to just get caught up in the moment, you know?"

Nadia's brow furrowed as her mouth parted in disgust. "Theo, I'm being honest, why won't you believe me? I—I don't understand how you could think I'd make _excuses_ for that type of behavior—"

"Nadia, I know you don't want to hurt me." He looked concerned as he softened his tone, and raised one hand to stroke her tangled hair. "I know that Tom's a really nice guy, and has been into you for a while, and there's really no reason why you shouldn't be into him too. And I know that, when the mood is right and the music is playing we can get carried away with these things—but I'm telling you that it's ok, that if you really want to be with me, we'll never have to talk about it again." He smiled at her, expecting her to mirror his contentment.

An unusual look graced Nadia's worn features as she stared at him through unbelieving eyes; thoughts that were utterly contrary to her amiable character flooded her mind. She couldn't help but think him pathetic, like a loyal dog eagerly running back to his whip-wielding master; in fact, she felt angered at his pitiable display, she wanted to slap him across the face, to scream at him, to force him to recognize his own disgraceful weaknesses. Instead, she continued reciting her lines.

"Sure, Theo, that sounds…that sounds wonderful." It seemingly took every facial muscle she had to feign a smile. Before she could say anything else, she felt his lips against hers; but no sensation pulsed through her body. No warmth, no happiness, no desire for anything more but solitude. She was numb.

---------------

Tom was bothered by the sight of Nadia and Swidhelm engaged in (from what he could tell) a mild lip-lock, but his anger abated when he saw the look on her face. Her eyes were open, searching for meaning in Theodore's fragile kiss, and as they fell onto Tom's austere features, she pulled away immediately.

"Swidhelm," he said cordially as he approached them with his confident gait, "how wonderful of you to look after our dear Nadia for a while. Goodness knows we need to make sure she doesn't eat or drink anything suspicious after last night!" Theo smiled and stood up from his seat, reaching his arm out to engage in a brief handshake.

"Tom, good of you to stop by. I see you brought some food—I actually have to grab lunch before class. You're cool looking after her for a bit, yeah?" Theo knelt to pick up his school bag and pushed the chair aside, looking back at Nadia with a shy smile.

"I wouldn't be here otherwise, Theodore. Leave her to my expert care." Tom's wide grin was dreadfully dishonest, but Nadia correctly suspected that Theo wouldn't know any better. As he left the empty ward, Tom took a seat on the edge of her bed, his fraudulent grin now transformed into a sly smile.

"You look like rubbish, darling." He tilted his head sideways to examine her bloodshot eyes and the streaks of mascara staining her cheeks. He lowered his eyes to scan the rest of her, so small and frail in the large hospital bed, her naked body nearly visible through the thin hospital gown. He would normally find such a display of fragility appalling, but her stubbornness and resolve only excited him further.

"Leave now, you worthless git. And give me my lunch." She scowled at him, suddenly relieved that she could be honest in expressing her anger, but wary of letting him discern too much from her emotion.

He leaned his face closer to hers and reached his hand to her soft neck; her thick black hair was damply matted to her skin, and he curled it between his fingers as he spoke. "Now now, let's propose a trade. You tell me what happened last night, and I'll give you the food you so desperately need."

Nadia pressed her head further back into her pillow in an effort to get away from his incisive gaze. "I _ate _something," she sneered, pushing his arm from her neck.

Tom clenched his jaw in anger, but maintained a steady voice. "Is that so?" he asked in a mockingly innocent tone. He reached for her waist, pulling her body across his lap and holding her down with an unwavering forcefulness. He lowered his face to hers and his eyes widened; Nadia suddenly felt a throbbing sensation in her temples, and squinted in pain. "S-stop, Tom, STOP!" She was breathing faster now, struggling against his hold on her, mentally and physically.

Though her body was weak, the horrific experience of loss seemed to only strengthen her resolve. Her eyes flew open, devoid of irises, and she breathed out calmly. She accepted the pain, and followed it, pinpointing the memories he was trying so hard to extract; she heard him cry out unexpectedly as she pushed him out of her mind, and the arms that held her forcefully now slackened their grip.

Her irises reappeared as she returned to consciousness, finding herself staring into a pair of unforgiving green eyes. Their faces were less than a few inches apart, and their rapid breaths became the only audible sound in the entire ward.

"Stay out of this," she whispered, her voice quivering slightly. "Just…just leave me. Leave me alone." She did not move from his lap, and maintained his gaze with tenacity.

Tom breathed in slowly, lowering his lips to her ear such that their cheeks lightly touched. "You know I can't do that, Nadia," he whispered back. "The longer you fight me like this, the less likely I am to let you be." He enveloped her in his arms, pulling her uncomfortably close; she had difficulty breathing as his chest pressed tightly against hers. "It'll be over when you want it to be, Nadia. All you have to do is…" He pushed his lips against her earlobe, his hot breath gracing her neck. "…Give in."

He released her suddenly, standing up as she fell clumsily to the floor. She grumbled in discomfort, turning to look up at him while massaging her bruised back. He was smiling.

"Just give in, Nadia," he said loudly, a tone of playfulness filling his voice as he turned to leave the hall. "Just give in and it'll all be over."

_Over my dead body_, she thought angrily to herself. _Or better yet, over yours. _

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A/N: This chapter was a little off, I think I grew tired of it. More important, however, are any readers' concerns that Tom's cruelty is out of character. I believe in all sincerity that a youth who has committed several murders without second thought has not one ounce of humanity within him, and it is in this vain that I have written his character. I hope this somewhat elucidates my motives.


	12. Chapter 12

It was a hollow depression that followed Nadia for days after learning of her parents' capture and likely death; she attended her classes in a half-alive state, still capable of answering questions and completing assignments, but in a manner so feigned and practiced that she struggled to remember who she really was, how she really spoke and laughed and moved. It was difficult at first to fight the urge to lie in bed at all hours, with the curtains drawn so that light wouldn't disturb her despondency; but she had a greater goal, a greater mission that needed her focus.

The nights spent voraciously reading the dark texts she'd stolen from the library were the only times that Nadia felt she had a purpose. She pored through volumes on memory charms and legilimency methods, strengthening her own mind and ability to manipulate the minds of others; she moved on to practice incantation-free and wandless magic for hours in the silence of her bedroom, skills she would undoubtedly have to master before wandering into the Muggle world—and into the unpredictable realm of Grindelwald. She read, wrote and practiced like an automaton, working off of few hours of sleep and seldom eaten meals, but her anger and desire for vengeance unfurled reserves of energy she had hardly thought existed.

In her fervor she managed to avoid the pleads and protests of Theodore Swidhelm, an unfortunately naïve youth who was now convinced that he and Nadia were going steady; she attributed her time constraints to the necessity of studying for exams before the winter break, and heard not one more word from the studious Ravenclaw, who inevitably felt that he should be doing the same.

And as for Tom Riddle, the Head Boy who couldn't seem to leave her alone, she regretted to find that she was beginning to understand the false rituals he engaged in every day to seem normal to the rest of them; she was beginning to see his true brilliance in how he could feign every emotion perfectly. She'd only been doing it for days, but he—he must have been pretending for most of his life to hide the blackness that lingered beneath his pleasant exterior. It made him no less despicable, but it sadly made him relatable, something Nadia thought impossible from the moment she arrived at Hogwarts.

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The particular hexes Tom had in mind for his meeting that night hadn't lived up to his expectations: he needed something more painful, darker, more difficult to cast in order to truly awe his followers. He retreated to the library, a place he'd always felt comfortable while perusing through the darkest books, particularly because his corner of the library—where such books were stored—was usually empty. He gently brushed the spines of the books in front of him, some of them so old and delicate that they flaked upon his touch. But he paused in surprise when his fingers graced an uncharacteristic gap in the ancient collection: between Confounding Curses and Disapparation in Dueling, a volume was missing. He wondered where Darkest of Arts could have been placed, a familiar tome he had studied thoroughly earlier in the year; he stepped quietly from the stacks of books, and plain in his sight, curled gracefully on the large, red leather chair before him, sat Nadia.

He immediately noticed the oddity of her location, considering the book she held in her hands looked relatively new, adorned with a picture of smiling Muggles of various ethnicities and the simple phrase "Muggle Inventions: 1870-1914" written boldly on the cover. She must have cast a disillusionment charm, he thought to himself, to cover the true contents of her reading, as the Muggle Studies section was on the far opposite end of where they rested. He silently conjured an invisibility spell while staring at the book in her hands.

She looked up immediately as the object seemingly disappeared; she still held it, but could see nothing. Her eyes narrowed, however, when she saw him standing before her.

"Interesting read, Nadia?" He smirked, slowly walking toward her. "Rubbish Studies would plausibly hold your interest," he began, "as most Mudbloods fall prey to its simplistic and worthless nature. But the Dark Arts—" his voice rose in interest "—now _that_ I wouldn't have ever expected to see you engaged in. Pray tell," he made his way behind the leather chaise, lowering his lips to lightly brush her earlobe, "what is it about the darkness that holds your interest?" Nadia shivered, but only for a moment. With his face inches away from hers, she raised herself from the chair to place a foot of distance between them.

"Why Tom, I'm surprised you didn't know!" She feigned a vapid giggle, touching her fingertips gently to her lips. "I'm just preparing to defend myself against you, dear Dark Lord, and your group of goons." She walked behind the chair, slowly inching toward him; her long, dark eyelashes fluttered downward, then opened to reveal glistening pools

of gold innocently matching his stern gaze. "It's just, you're so--so _strong_," she breathed heavily, reaching her fingers to gently brush against his arm, "and I'm so helpless, so weak," she was closer now, locks of wavy black hair framing the softness of her face. Her chest, ample yet delicate, pressed lightly against his; she could feel his heart racing. "So you really couldn't be too surprised that I want to defend myself, could you?" She smiled daintily, her fingertips now grazing his angled jaw.

Tom was not a man to be affected by such feminine touches, but the lightness of her fingers, of her bosom, caused his blood to pulse. His mind, however, too strongly resented the notion of being toyed with, and as his fists clenched angrily he pondered how he would harm her with minimal interference from the librarian.

He opened his mouth in shock when Nadia, as if anticipating his desire to smother her, deftly raised her wand with her left hand, pointing it at his chest and placing a good amount of space between them.

"Uh-uh, Mr. Riddle, hadn't your mother ever taught you not to touch what you can't have? Or I guess she never got the chance…" she said with malice in her voice, a cruelty he hadn't heard from her before. She was focused, strong, and her glistening eyes turned a shade darker and rested intently on his. He was impressed and angered, so close to catching his prey yet so infuriated with her teasing. He smiled, this time showing his full range of teeth because of his utter amusement at watching her wand slip out of her hand and into his own. Learning silent incantations was certainly worth the late-night effort.

"Be sincere with me, Nadia, for I could crush you in a second," he warned, his voice dropping to a whisper. He stepped toward her, matching two forward for every step she took back. "I could have you, use you and dispose of you without a second thought, and you wouldn't even struggle. I'd make sure of that. So tell me, what are you doing dabbling in arts for which you have no talent?" She was pressed against the stack of books now, her arms gripping the volumes on either side.

"You could have me, Tom? Well, I wouldn't be too sure about that. I mean, with intercourse," she looked into his eyes again and lowered her voice, "there is a certain...mixing...of fluids," her eyes drifted down to his abdomen and beyond, "and, well, I don't exactly want to be mixed up with someone so..._impure_." Her cheeks tightened, trying not to laugh at her own clever insult, and Tom cringed at its double meaning—he was neither a pureblood nor was he exactly chaste.

"You disgust me," he snarled, a shade of rage coming over his features, one hand gripping her waist and one digging into her shoulders. "You are absolute _filth_," his hand traveled under her robes, coldly latching onto her skin, his nails cutting deeper until she breathed in sharply. "And I'm sick of this evasive game you're playing, Mudblood. You have no idea what I'm capable of. Now _tell me _why you have a sudden interest in the Dark Arts, or I swear you'll be on their receiving end quite shortly."

When Tom's nails drew blood from her back, he'd expected a slight cry from her, maybe even a few tears; but he was earnestly shocked when he heard an agreeable gasp escape her lips.

In the weeks since her parents' disappearance and probable death, Nadia had been unable to feel anything: neither the scalding hot water in her shower nor the elation that normally came with high marks—even her taste had been compromised—everything was bland, everything was numb. And now, for the first time since that moment, she felt his nails ripping into her flesh, she felt warm blood dripping down her back, she felt a soreness in her shoulders…and she needed to feel more. She met his wide eyes with clarity, and arched her back to press harder to his body. "Kiss me," she rasped, breathing heavily into his ear.

Tom was incredibly aroused by her masochistic display, and pulled her closer while aggressively pressing his lips against hers. As their tongues met each other Nadia reached beneath his robes, pulling at his belt, her hands traveling down to stroke him teasingly. He groaned and kissed her harder, his nails tearing into her flesh as his hand traveled up her back. She breathed out in a disturbing blend of pain and pleasure, and bit his lip forcefully; he grew more excited as blood dripped down his chin, and as his face pressed against hers it poured graciously unto her rose cheeks, staining her dark skin with crimson. The hand that gripped her shoulder now crawled to the collar of her robes, and tore downward with vigor; he spread his fingers across her breast, rubbing and teasing through her thin cotton shirt; and overcome by their sensuality he tore his face from hers and lowered it to her chest, licking and pressing with his tongue, a trail of blood from his lip smearing down her blouse. He was uncontrollable now, fighting to take her, to break her, and she was fighting back just as hard.

It was then that the sadistic and cathartic display of Tom Riddle and Nadia Khalil was interrupted by a most unwelcome voice.

"My lord, are you there? I thought you'd already finished the books in this section…" Abraxas Malfoy's voice rose from no more than two yards away, and Nadia and Tom pulled themselves apart immediately. She turned to leave quickly but was stopped by his forceful grip on her forearm.

"Don't move," he whispered, staring at her with a hungry gaze. "I'm not finished with you."

As Abraxas came upon the sight of the two, his mouth opened in shock; he stared at Tom, then Nadia, then back at his Dark Lord. Her robes were torn, and blood stained her cheeks, chest and back; his lip was bleeding terribly, and bright red scratch marks stood in stark contrast to the pale skin of his neck. Abraxas smiled.

"My _Lord_…I see you've been making some progress with our…victim," he said, walking slowly toward them. "I thought that you would've left her for us, but I daresay she'll suffer a _much_ worse fate under your control. I simply cannot believe I doubted you."

"Nor can I," Tom said, his tone resounding with confidence. He held her arm tighter as she attempted to wrench it away.

"Your _victim_, Tom?" she asked acerbically, her jaw noticeably clenched. She turned to Abraxas after discerning no response from his cold eyes. "I think you've mistaken who's in control here, Malfoy. Your 'Lord' can't seem to keep his hands off of his favorite Mudblood. Hardly an obsession suitable for the leader of the pureblood goal, right?" She turned back to Tom, her brows furrowed in anger. He would not meet her eyes, and he would not release her arm.

"Abraxas, as you can see I have…business to attend to tonight. Please inform the others that we shall postpone our meeting until next week." He watched as the pale boy nodded in reverent understanding, leaving abruptly with no fewer than three eager glances over his shoulder.

"Let go of me. Now," she demanded, pulling angrily at his unflinching arm. "I have no problem making noise, Tom, and I'd be more than happy to drag your name through the dirt. Head-Boy-turned-library-pervert is how they'll remember you, Riddle." There was a playfulness in her tone, but her nails dug deeply into his flesh as she pulled at him, begging for any sort of release.

She felt suddenly exposed as they returned to the world around them, leaving behind their fervent yearnings as well as the searing memory of those few inexplicable moments among ancient runes. Unbeknownst to her, these feelings of vulnerability were mirrored in the dark green eyes that struggled to hold her gaze.

His voice broke the chasm of cogent silence that stood between them. "I need to speak with you; I will be in my quarters. Come join me when you're finished healing yourself." He looked at her briefly, a sullen curiosity coming over his features, then released her arm before turning to leave.

She exhaled forcefully. "You're not going to drag me there, Tom? What makes you think I'd _willingly _go to meet you in a place where I'd be hard pressed to find any help if, say, you decide to _kill _me? You can't possibly believe I'd be that stupid." She crossed her arms defiantly, and focused on his back with an unblinking intensity.

He paused, looking over his shoulder but choosing not to meet her eyes.

"What's your fear of getting wet, Nadia, when you're already drowning?"

It sounded exactly like something her father would say.

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	13. Chapter 13

It was precisely thirty minutes after nine that Tom discerned a faint voice in his mind, whose tone and manner matched that of the girl who consumed his thoughts for the last hour. He left his pristine quarters immediately, ignoring the sixth and seventh-year Slytherins who congregated in the common room excitedly discussing the upcoming Quiddich match and possible pranks one could pull on the opposing Gryffindor team. As he discreetly opened the portrait, Tom greeted a cold, beautiful face, a face without scars, a face whose golden skin bore no mark of his blood; it was as if nothing had happened, but both of them knew that though the physical wounds had disappeared, the memory of their savage encounter was etched firmly in their minds.

"This way," he said in a reticent manner, walking strides in front of her as she followed discreetly. When she entered his room, she barely heard the door close behind her: she looked curiously at the vacant walls, the organized shelves with their alphabetized books; the marble floors exuded no warmth, and she felt a chill crawl across her flesh as they stood in silence. She lowered her eyes for a moment, and spoke to the emptiness in front of her.

"You imply that you think I'm suffering, that I'm helpless. You don't know me. You don't know anything about me."

Tom stepped from behind her, tilting his head as he searched for her eyes; she remained focused on the marble below her.

"I never pretended to. However," he began, moving toward the arched window before them, "I _do_ look for consistency of character in those I associate with. At a certain point, Nadia, we all stop changing. We have an idea of who we are, what we feel is right or wrong, what feels good and what does not—these things tend not to change in the average person, and I daresay failure to understand this concept is what leads to naivety, and the downfall of many friendships, families…even kingdoms. People are too naïve to realize that no one can truly change." He looked at her, his irises growing darker as he shielded his eyes with a furrowed brow.

"I _relish _this consistency, Nadia, because it makes people predictable, and when people are predictable, they are controllable." He walked slowly toward her, and reached his hand to the gentle curve of her chin, raising her face to his. She did not refuse his touch. "But you…just when I thought I'd properly characterized you—you see, this is what makes you so intriguing now, Nadia. You've changed. Something's happened. You can pretend all you want with the rest of them, they wouldn't know the difference. But I can feel it."

Her eyes suddenly opened with alacrity, and she slapped his arm away while taking a step back toward the door. "You can't 'feel' anything Tom," she said casually. "You're just obsessed with making up challenges and stories where there are none—"

"You're trying to avoid the matter at hand now, Nadia, and I'm not going to fall for the same tricks that the others do—"

"You're crazy," she breathed heavily, her voice growing stronger. "I don't even know why I came, I don't know what I thought you knew, you know nothing, you don't—"

"You can pretend all you want," he stepped forward boldly, "but nothing will hide the fact that you're _numb _Nadia, you _can't feel_—"

"You don't know me!" she shrieked, "You know nothing about me! You're sick, obsessed—" She was against the wall now, struggling to focus on the young man who now pressed against her with paralyzing force.

"You only see pain, you only feel pain, it's the only thing that's real to you anymore, isn't it! _Isn't it!_" His hands gripped her shoulders tightly, and his body blocked her every movement.

"STOP—Let me GO!—" She struggled against him frantically, hitting, slapping, scratching his pale face and arms, but to no avail.

"What happened to you Nadia, to change you like that!? _What happened!?_" His eyes searched hers with an insatiable eagerness; yet as he watched them glisten with tears he felt the tightness of his grip abate, and stepped back as a soft sob rose in her throat. He could find neither the words to speak nor the gestures to express anything meaningful: she was broken. Something, someone had finally broken her. And it wasn't himself. Tom focused on her frail form and waited in silence.

"They...they took them," she whispered, her quiet voice quivering as she struggled to speak. "From—from where they were hiding. They…it's likely they…they killed them." She raised her hands to her mouth to stifle her sobs, but a weakness overcame her body as she slid down the wall, collapsing on the marble floor beneath her. She was too overwhelmed with grief to be embarrassed in front of him; and even then, she was too numb to feel anything but pain and the sorrow of loss.

Tom turned from her, his mind speedily processing her words; his fingers pressed to his temple as he spoke. "Your parents, then. Must have been during that Muggle offensive, what were they calling it…Battle of the Bulge. In the Ardennes." He began to pace from left to right in front of her. "And you—the Dark Arts—oh Nadia, you weren't seriously thinking you could—?" The notion was unfathomable to him, that she, this slight girl who barely possessed the force to escape his own attempts to harm her, sought to embark on a vengeful and perilous expedition where she would be facing dark wizards and even darker armies.

She raised her eyes to his, a ferocity quickly filling her features. "What's so absurd about that? Winter Break is coming Tom. I have no where to go anymore. No home, no family—and they—they deserve to pay for what they've done—"

"Fine, say you were actually experienced and skilled enough to fight—an unlikely assumption but we'll ignore that for the moment—what next? How do you get there?" He walked toward her, kneeling to meet her gaze.

"I'd…I…I could appara—"

"Think again. Not only would that long of a distance be nearly impossible for apparition, but the Ministry is regulating all travel from the United Kingdom to continental Europe because of the threat Grindelwald poses." His eyes were bright now, piercing hers with a harrowing intensity.

"Fine—conventional travel then, by foot and boat—"

"Wrong," he said loudly, maintaining his condescending glare. "No unauthorized sea vessels can get near the English channel without the Muggle authorities noticing. It's a big time war, Nadia, you won't be able to skip on through without bringing attention to yourself. I will ask you again, _how _do you plan on getting there?"

"Fine!" she snapped frustratingly. "I haven't thought everything out yet! What the hell do you care, anyway? Why even bother with all the questions, Tom?!" She heatedly rose from where she sat, as dark streaks of mascara and tears crossed her face and came to rest on the angered lines of her unflinching jaw.

"Because you need me, Nadia. You need me to defeat them, to find out what happened to your parents, to exact revenge on those who harmed them. You need me, and you know it." It was difficult to conceal the arrogance in his tone as he rose to meet her eyes again, stepping closer to enhance his point. He barely stopped to think that the reverse could ever be true.

"This isn't your fight, Tom. There's absolutely no reason for you to get involved." She was quieter now, gently pushing away the dark tendrils that obscured her face with the back of her hand.

"There's one," he said in a low voice. His face was close to hers now, and as Nadia met his honest gaze, she felt herself swallow uncertainly. She thought in that moment that their lips would meet again, softly, briefly, a world of emotion unleashed in that simplest touch.

Instead, he raised his chin, and spoke quite matter-of-factly while looking down at her. "Killing Muggles. They'll be well-armed, militarized Muggles, but that'll be even more valuable practice." He turned from her confused stare, beginning to pace the room yet again. "You see, I thought you were worthy practice, Nadia, because you oppose me, and you're one of the rare few who do. But by God, what better way to prepare myself to fight a war than actually fighting in a war?" He tone grew more animated as the thought of callously draining human life fed his excitement.

A sharp voice interrupted his eager state of contemplation.

"NO." She stepped forcefully toward him as she maintained the sternness in her voice. "You want to practice murdering people—yes _people_, Tom, because that's what they are, just like you and me—then you go ahead. I won't stop you." She raised her finger pointedly and pressed it to his throat.

"But you will _never _commit such heinous crimes under _my_ watch, as _my_ traveling companion or otherwise. The fact that you can't see the irony in your reasoning is _disgusting_." Sensing his displeasure, she lowered her finger from his flesh but narrowed her eyes while speaking. "You want to help me find my Muggle parents, dead or alive, so you can get practice in killing Muggles? My god Tom, what's to prevent you from killing me while you're at it?"

Tom Riddle's first thought was to order her to cease her outrageous display and employ his usual tactics of charm, force and twisted reason to convince her of her need for him. Yet, over the course of several months, he'd developed an odd relationship with this vivacious young woman whereby he found it inexplicably difficult to lie to her; accordingly, at the moment her vehement words entered his mind, he ignored his usual impulse to deceive and struggled to find any holes in the logic she'd used. With no quick words to counter her accusations, he returned her angered stare blankly.

"Right. Exactly what I expected. I don't need you, Tom. I never will." She quickly turned from him, trying with great effort to withhold the tears that came with the realization that she would be truly alone in the dark places she was to travel. She felt a familiar ache on her forearm as Tom reached to grab her again.

"Nadia wait—wait. These people, these…National Socialists…they're not people. They're not Muggles. They're savages, no more deserving of life than the murders in Azkaban or the untamed beasts that wander the Forbidden Forest. What argument could you possibly have against my…_disposing_ of them?"

She looked at him with weary eyes that bore the faintest trace of moisture at their corners. "Is everything that black and white to you?"

"It is when you seek revenge. You can't think of it in any other terms, else you'll end up hurt. You should know this." He released her arm, but came closer, the edges of his perfectly pressed robes undulating with every step he took toward her. "If you start searching for gray, you can be tricked, fooled…you grow _weak_. You can make excuses for murderers, you can lie to protect utter wickedness. You can even fall in love with monsters." His last words clung to the emptiness around them, seeking solitude in the depths of their all too human ears.

She closed her eyes briefly, and let the cold, sterile air enter her lungs with ease. Behind the thin veil of skin that temporarily separated her from his overwhelming gaze, Nadia saw a wintry scene, an isolated world where she and an untrustworthy stranger sought to find warmth in the coldest of places. This was going to be a world of unpredictability. But it was the only world she knew.

"Okay," she said quietly. Tom sensed a semblance of determination in her voice as she stepped toward the door. "The term ends Friday. We should figure out a way to get to St. Hubert by Monday."

"I'm looking forward to it." A serpentine grin crossed his lips as he watched her leave.

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A/N: Thanks for the reviews, I appreciate your thoughts. This story is categorized as a Romance/Adventure, so here's where we begin the adventure (which does not, of course, preclude the romance…)


	14. Chapter 14

"Where've you been, Nady?"

Catherine's light voice greeted her as she entered the common room; a few diligent Gryffindors were splayed across the soft rugs and luxurious couches with volumes of notes on their laps, intent on studying for the last few hours before their morning exams. The only empty space in the room seemed to be on the wide leather chaise where Catherine sat, and where Nadia so often joined her in their late night musings.

"Just some last minute studying at the library," she lied, donning a meek smile as she sat beside her. "So are you feeling ready for this all to end?" She paused as the multiple meanings of the seemingly simple question played in her mind.

"No doubt about it—god I just want to go home so badly—I can't wait to see Mama and Papa and little Sarah…Strasbourg is free now, did you hear?" The excitement in her voice was unmistakable; she suddenly enveloped her friend in her arms, her chestnut locks swaying to meet Nadia's stoic features. "They're free, finally, they're safe and free and…Nady you must be so happy too! Your parents, they were in St. Dié, right?"

_St. Hubert_, she wanted to say, _not St. Dié. St. Hubert, where the Sixth Panzer Army is pummeling through shrouded terrain, killing off what little life is left in those quiet villages._

"Y—yes. I…I'm so relieved." She tried to feign excitement, but a deep-seated bitterness poisoned her voice.

"Nady…" Catherine pulled away to look into her eyes, searching for the source of her uncharacteristic reaction. They were tired, worn, and the flecks of gold which so often sparkled when she spoke seemed to dull to a dark brown. "It's the offensive they've been talking about, isn't it." She sighed, and rested her hands on the cold flesh of Nadia's thin arms. "I know…a lot of people are suffering now, in the areas they're trying to take back. In Belgium, in Luxembourg, in eastern France. But the U.S. is sending lots of troops and…"

An empty expression remained fixed her friend's face. She wondered if she should continue to speak.

"…and there are always casualties of war, Nady. It almost feels wrong to be happy at a time like this. But we're okay. They're okay. It's okay to smile, if only for a minute."

Nadia didn't resent Catherine for her words; the girl was well-intentioned and unquestionably warm-hearted. But she was naïve. Tom's venomous dislike of the characteristic seemed to seep into her subconscious as she struggled to smile. She figured it would be easier to just conceal her vague expression by leaning in to hug Catherine again; as their bodies entwined briefly, she wondered if this would be the last time they saw each other. She wondered if she would even want to come back.

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It was unusual for Tom Riddle to spend more than five minutes with a girl unless she was partially or completely nude, and thus his recent encounters with Nadia were an unquestionable departure from routine. It was still, however, a necessary routine. He knew as soon as she left that he would have to quell the hunger that frequented his restless loins; he at least had the propriety to wait until she'd exited the portrait hole before searching for a satisfying partner for the night.

Tom could always depend on Elizabeth Covington to tend to these specific needs. She was tall with flaxen hair and smooth, rounded breasts, and, importantly, she possessed a quality which Tom sought most eagerly in his partners: a consistent willingness to please him. It was difficult for him to recall the color of her eyes, as he rarely—if ever—studied her face, but he knew her body well enough to pick her out of the crowd of Slytherin girls that now mingled in the common room.

"Elizabeth." His low voice spoke from behind her. The young woman turned immediately, a broad smile crossing her face as she recognized him. Tom did not bother saying anything more, but raised an eyebrow knowingly as he looked into her eyes, then discreetly left for his room. So they were blue, he thought to himself. Blue, vacuous eyes.

"I thought you'd grown tired of me," she teased, slowly unclasping her dress robes while closing the door behind her. Tom sighed as he anticipated having to speak with her before she would relent, but was relieved that she was at least unhesitant to remove her clothes. Unbuttoning his shirt, he sat adjacent to her naked form on the edge of his bed.

"Darling," he purred, tracing the curve of her body with his fingertips, "Exams are this week and you know how I am about studying. Everything must be settled before I can indulge."

She curled her thin lips into an irritated pout. "That's a lie, Tom. You've been spending all your time with that…_Mudblood_."

Tom's fingers stopped mid-caress, resting tentatively on her slender waist.

"I see you talking to her, looking at her, even having her come to your own quarters not more than twenty minutes ago. What could she possibly have that I don't?"

_A brain_, he wanted to say, and very nearly did. He exercised restraint in his voice as he chose his next words carefully. "I find that it can be enlightening to gain the perspective of those who oppose me, Lizzy darling. To know how they think. Nadia has much to offer in this regard."

"Oh, come off it Tom. She's beneath you, she's beneath all of us. Stop pretending to be someone you're not." She let out an emphatic "harrumph" and rolled over to turn away from him.

Her comment caught Tom's attention immediately. It wasn't so much that the opposite was true—he pretended around _them _and was only honest with _her_—but he was startled that this selfish, vapid young witch could actually give him an idea. This was to be precisely how he and Nadia would make their way across the English Channel.

Staring at this youthful woman, the embodiment of beauty, privilege and obliviousness, Tom became suddenly excited at the prospect of leaving. He knew with certainty that he would feel no urge to return.

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"I have our free ride across," he whispered hurriedly in her ear. Tom barely brushed her shoulder as the large group of students, recently released from their Transfiguration exams, made their way to the Great Hall for lunch. Small patches of sunlight struggled to pour through the dark clouds that saturated the sky; it would snow again on this cold Friday afternoon, and the sense of foreboding was not lost on the two youths.

Their eyes met briefly; his were filled with excitement, wide and veiled with an emerald sheath that glassily reflected her apprehensive face. Though the unpredictability of the next few days worried her, she was still grateful for some degree of companionship, and nodded accordingly.

_My room_, she spoke to his thoughts. _When you're finished with your Defense Against the Dark Arts exam._

He wasn't surprised that she suggested her own quarters: it was all too clear that she did not trust him. This would have to change, he thought to himself, if they were to survive.

---------------

Tom had managed to convince Elizabeth to leave him alone the night before, citing "exam-induced stress" as the reason behind his reluctance to perform. Of course, the truth was that he was eager to begin work on he and Nadia's plans, which he now held firmly in his school bag: to the average student they would appear to be books, courtesy of his impeccable skills in transfiguration.

"Oh—Tom! What—is someone expecting you?" Laura opened the portrait hole with swooning eyes that examined his figure with noticeable desire.

Nadia descended the steps from her quarters, motioning him to follow her. "He's with me, Laura—we're going over a last minute project we have to turn in."

"For Herbology," he added, ignoring the girl's all-too-eager grin. She winked at Nadia teasingly, and maintained her manic smile as her eyes watched him disappear through Nadia's door.

As she heard the door close, Nadia sat on a small wooden chair next to her desk, positioning herself so as to put a decent distance between herself and the young man who stood before her. He settled at the edge of her bed.

"So what's the grand plan?" she said tersely, her eyes wandering to the bag he held to his chest. It was slightly disturbing to see him in her private quarters, on her bed, gently brushing his fingertips against her ruffled scarlet and gold sheets. He seemed eager to help—likely due to the tempting thrill of adventure, she thought—but his motives were still a mystery, shrouded perfectly by his composed, elegant features.

A tight-lipped smile crossed his face as he was amused by her curt demand, but in deference to good judgment he decided not to play games. As he subtly evaluated her appearance he noticed she looked tired, the likely result of several days of restless slumber; her eyes, however, were radiating an intensity he'd rarely seen in her before.

"We're going to pretend," he said simply. He removed the faux-books from his bag and murmured a quick spell to transfigure the objects: two uniforms rested plainly in his hands. The first was standard issue British Army attire, complete with black boots, a steel helmet with 3/8-inch camouflage netting and an olive wool coat with a chevron patch signifying the rank of lance corporal. The second was a gray cotton shirtwaist, tied with a gray belt, with short sleeves and a white collar: a square, white box with a one-inch red cross in center was positioned just above the left breast.

Nadia stared at the uniforms, her mouth ajar, then looked at him in disbelief. "You're joking."

"Not in the least," he said quickly. "There's no other feasible way of getting to France unnoticed by either Muggles or the Ministry—with these outfits, all we have to do is blend in with the crowd. These are the uniforms they're using in the war, according to pictures in the Muggle papers; they won't suspect a thing."

"I may be able to volunteer with the Red Cross without drawing much attention to myself, but you're going to need a lot more than that piece of cloth to embed with the British Infantry. The first of which is papers." She turned to her desk, opening the wide drawer to her right: an expanding charm had allowed it to fit a significant volume of newspapers, which she now gingerly removed and placed on her bed beside him. Tom was shocked at how meticulously organized these Muggle documents were as she laid them out chronologically before him; he sensed that for the last two years she'd been collecting and reading them in hopes that she may one day see a headline gracing the Daily Mail or the London Times that signified the end of war, and freedom for her family. He suspected with a mild feeling of regret that she wouldn't see that headline anytime soon.

"We need to give you a story, Tom. They're going to question why a healthy, eighteen-year old male hadn't enlisted months ago, as there is still an active draft. And to get over there in two days' time, we can't have you being sent to basic training as a new recruit. Here," she said, pointing to newspaper from May, 1943. "A perfect story."

He stood silently beside her, observing as she pulled out her wand and pointed it at the paper: in a moment's time, she had transfigured it to a stack of three standard sized papers, slightly yellow in color and covered in typewritten script.

Satisfied with her work, she plainly placed them in his hands: in the upper right hand corner, his face looked stoic and strong, though he was disturbed by how unmoving it was. Muggle photos had always struck him as bizarre because of their immobility. Beneath his picture there was information about an injury he had suffered:

_Lance Corporal Thomas M. Riddle, 22 yrs_

_British Eighth Army_

_Tunisia, 27 May 1943: Wound to right atrium, minor tissue damage to superior and inferior vena cava. Bullet removed 2 June 1943, functionality recovered fully. _

_Return Date: 20 December 1944. To be placed in the British Second Army, under Lieutenant General Miles C. Dempsey._

He raised his eyes from the papers to look at her.

"Wounded in the heart? Seriously?"

The smallest hint of a smirk crossed her full lips. "Seeing as how you don't have one, I thought it'd be appropriate." She moved toward him with her wand firmly gripped in her right hand. "Now, we _do _need to show them evidence of this injury. It'll have to be a scar of some sort, and we have to make it look like you had surgery—"

"Sur—what? Are you crazy?! I will bear no Muggle mark—you can't possibly justify _branding_ someone like that—" He caught himself before she could fully realize the irony of his statement. "The whole thing just isn't very believable Nadia. How many people do _you _know who've survived a shot to the heart?"

She ignored his question and reached for the front of his robes. "If you have the proper scar, no one will ask about it. And as long as you look healthy, they'll assume you're fine to fight." She paused suddenly, lowering her wand to her side as she looked at him with concern.

"Tom…do you even know how to fight with conventional Muggle weapons?"

He found himself troubled by the relevance of her question. They would be expecting him to have at least three full years of infantry experience, and he'd had none. It was slightly ironic to consider that he possessed immense knowledge of all the offensive and defensive tactics the Wizarding world had to offer, yet he had none which would suit him in the realm of Muggles.

"All we have to do is figure out how to get to the right place without using magic," he concluded. "After we land, the Ministry is no longer relevant; since Grindelwald and his followers are using magic on Muggles regardless of International Wizarding Laws, they won't be able to do anything about our use of magic abroad. And I highly doubt they'll be asking me to discharge a weapon before letting me onboard the vessel." He was satisfied with his answer, which he deemed to be quite well thought-out; Nadia, predictably, remained reluctant.

"Considering your loathing of all-things-Muggle, Tom, I realize you have an excuse for being this ignorant. But once you land, if you can't escape and find me immediately, you'll be forced to fight, and in the time it takes you to utter one spell you'll already be _riddled_ with bullets." She raised an eyebrow. "Excuse the pun."

Her quick wit and propensity to challenge him had always proved arousing; at this instant, however, he maintained his composure and replied calmly. "I'm a quick learner, Nadia. I'll have plenty of time to figure things out on the trip over. Sure, it may involve having to associate with _filth_, but I can assure you that the option of dying is far less preferable for me." He stepped toward her, unclasping his dress robes to facilitate the faux-surgery. "And what of you, Nadia? You _do _realize you can't join the British Red Cross with that suspicious accent of yours."

"Oh, don't worry about me Tom," she said, pulling his gray vest off with one hand while tightly clutching her wand in the other. "It may mean that I have to associate with _filth_," she raised her eyes to glare at him, "but I'll be able to feign it well enough."

It was when she began to unbutton his shirt that his breath caught momentarily in his throat. As her slender fingers lightly brushed against his skin, his mind graciously unfurled the memory of their brief encounter in the library, where each kiss, each caress, each movement was driven by longing and depravity, passion and abandon. His heart unwittingly fought against his desire for restraint, for control, and quickened its desperate pace; he did not dare meet her eyes in that moment of corporeal weakness.

Yet the sight of his smooth, pale flesh caused her to hesitate; she too was flooded with the memory of inexplicable emotion shared in the most unlikely of places; and upon releasing the last button from its delicate hold, Nadia found her arms gently pushing the thin white fabric behind his rigid shoulders. His body was firm and powerful, and with every quick breath she watched his chest rise and fall along with the graceful unity of bone and muscle that rested on his ribcage and abdomen. As her arms dropped from his shoulders, her fingers airily traveled over the beautiful crevices that comprised his unmoving form; her eyes traced their path until they rested on the heart-shaped indent that lay betwixt his collarbones.

He was intrigued by her sensual curiosity, and compelled by his own; he made the slightest movement to cause the shirt to fall silently from his shoulders, and raised his bare arms to hold her thin wrists. She looked at him, startled by the softness of his touch, and blinked absently as if returning from a distant thought. He held her honest gaze, his breath slowing; her full lips parted slightly, seemingly beginning to form the words that would make sense of their conflicting thoughts, their uncertain actions, but no sound emerged. Silence spoke for both of them.

"The wound, then," he said calmly, clearing his throat. She nodded, breaking their stirring gaze, pointing the wand that she still clutched tightly in her hand to the flesh above his heart.

It was to be the first of many scars she would imprint upon his human form.

---------------

A/N: Way longer than my normal chapters, I'm hoping it'll be sufficient for a while! So for those of you wondering where the story is going, it's heading to the European theater of war. I think it'll be quite telling to see these two struggling in an unfamiliar world where they can discover things about themselves and each other in a whole new context…thanks for the reviews—they keep me writing!—and helpful criticism is always welcome. :)


	15. Chapter 15

Apparating to the Portsmouth Harbour did not prove to be an obstacle for the two talented youths; navigating the zoo of soldiers, nurses, tents and weapons piles, however, could not have been more confusing.

Nadia nudged Tom in the direction of the barracks; he looked aloof in his military garb, especially while toting his particularly weighty and cleverly disguised bag of "tricks," so to speak, from the Wizarding world. They suspected their wands would not be enough considering how little they knew of the situation they were putting themselves into: Polyjuice potion, Confusing Concoction and Invigoration Draught were only a few of the many magical items they chose to bring.

He looked into her eyes before parting; they knew they were not to be seen together (for if one was caught as a fraud, the other would be safe), but it occurred to both that there was still much to say before they set off to play their respective parts.

Nadia was the first to speak, in a rushed whisper. "Remember, you need to be placed in the British Second Army, in the 33rd Armoured Brigade, and the man who's in charge of it all, who you have to revere and obey and know everything about is—"

"—General Bernard Montgomery. Don't worry, you're not the only one who's been reading in preparation for this." He almost smiled at her apparent concern for his well-being; it had been quite a noticeable shift from those first few moments when she taunted him from across the hall after Potions class. But perhaps her pained features reflected a fear for her own safety as well; if he were somehow caught, the chance for revenge, for retribution and solace, for peace of mind and serenity of soul, would be lost.

The damp sorrow in her eyes disappeared as she stole a glance at the sky; the sun rose boldly behind the magnificent gray clouds that carpeted the horizon. It was a new day, she thought, a fresh chance to pull her hands from the twisted rope the bound them two short years ago; she ignored the bitter memory of their fingers on her flesh, the cold steel of Luger pistols pressed against her naked form, the scar…she would stop at nothing to force these images from her mind, replacing them with visions of their deserved deaths.

She pulled her own gray canvas bag close to her chest as her eyes briefly caught his stare. "Good luck," she whispered, turning toward the British Red Cross barracks.

----------

Margerie Thompson was tasked with ensuring that the U.K.'s and America's armed forces were fit for duty; she was the best at her job because her enthusiasm stemmed from the fact that it allowed her to temporarily live in an exciting world, divorced from the drudgery of her all too dreary home life. Measuring them, weighing them, medicating them and flirting with these healthy young men ensured that she wouldn't be preoccupied with her own unhealthy marriage of over thirty years. While waving off Sergeant Erikson—a rosy-cheeked twenty-four year old from South Carolina—she rested her eyes on the impeccable visage of Thomas M. Riddle.

"Oh sweetheart, I wouldn't peek behind those curtains if I were you," she smiled, motioning for him to come toward the nursing station. Tom raised an eyebrow confusedly but tried to maintain a stoic expression as he approached the old woman.

"Papers?" she asked, still wearing an excited smile. He looked at her for a moment, blinked once, then lowered his eyes to the jungle green bag he held in his hands.

"…Right, yes, here." He was careful to open the bag in a manner that shielded her eyes from its contents; he placed the three type-written sheets in her hands and stood awkwardly in front of her.

"Have a seat darlin', you won't be going anywhere just yet." She glanced at the pages, gasping dramatically mid-way through. "My god child, an injury to the _heart_? And you're coming _back_?"

Tom's eyes widened as he struggled to think of something to say. He cursed himself for having listened to Nadia's ridiculous idea—of course they would catch on to their absurd lie.

"You are quite the dedicated soldier, aren't you? I tell ya, I would've left the Armed Forces permanently with that kind of injury…but by God, you came back. That is just so _admirable_." She looked dreamily into his dark eyes as a shocked expression crossed his face; it quickly shifted to a shy smile as he realized how gullible this poor woman was.

"I just…couldn't leave my boys behind," he said in a low voice, faking an emotional transition in his taut features. "This war means everything to me." That statement, he thought quietly to himself, may not have been_ entirely_ false.

After taking his height and weight measurements, the robust old woman reached for his arm to determine his blood pressure; her eyes widened immediately. "Goodness child, you're freezing! I'm guessing you've got low enough blood pressure—you certainly have bad circulation."

"Or he's just cold-blooded. Snake-like, if you will," a sharp voice added in an impeccable imitation of Queen's English. Nadia stepped toward the dimly lit workstation, but even in complete darkness one could not miss her radiance. The drab fabric of the Red Cross volunteer corps failed to mask her subtle curves and dark, slender legs; and with her hair pinned delicately in a tight bun and a dash of rouge painted on her full lips, she exuded an air of elegance and grace that left any observer momentarily breathless.

Tom coolly lowered his gaze as she approached them; Margerie smiled at the young nurse, letting out a soft chuckle. "Oh no, not this one. He's a warm-hearted cutie pie, this one is. I tell ya, I've been doin' this for a long time—I know how to spot the good ones."

Nadia tried to smile politely, but the expression almost resembled a disbelieving smirk. "I'm sure he is," she said reluctantly. When she placed her hand gently on his shoulder, Tom winced slightly; he did not want their association with each other to rouse suspicion. But Nadia left her hand in its place as she spoke firmly: "No matter what the case is with this soldier, all I know is that I was sent here by Staff Sergeant Worthington to fetch him, Mrs. Thompson. The 33rd is about ready to depart—they leave the dock in three hours—and two of their soldiers have been held back for health reasons. This one here looks ready to go—but of course, not before we get _your_ seal of approval." She smiled sweetly, trying her best to deliver her lie with an honest tone. Tom looked at Nadia curiously, but she maintained a steady gaze with the kindly blue eyes of Margerie Thompson.

"Well," she sighed, "He does have low blood pressure, and that could be related to the heart injury. But then again, low blood pressure is probably favorable in stressful war conditions. I'll transfer your papers for approval, then. But one more thing," she said, looking at Tom questioningly. "Sweetie, do you feel ready to go?"

His eyebrows rose involuntarily as he looked from the woman before him to Nadia, then back again. "Y—yes, yes I'm…I'm ready to go. To fight for my country."

"To _die_ for your country," Nadia added with the slightest hint of emotion in her voice.

-------------

He had flown on brooms, he had disappeared and appeared out of thin air, he had ridden mysterious and magnificent creatures; but never had Tom Riddle felt the uncomfortable and claustrophobic effect of traveling on an amphibious LVT-2 across the English Channel. Twenty-three other men accompanied him, as well as a 36 millimeter M6 turret, in case they encountered resistance upon landing.

Tom initially kept to himself and took a bit of Sleeping Draught to get some rest on the cramped vehicle; but upon waking he found himself the subject of interest of the other soldiers.

"Oy there," said the man in closest proximity to his resting form. "You're certainly new 'round these parts—we 'aven't seen you before in the 33rd. You alright there? Lookin' a bit sick, mate." The young soldier looked at Tom with inquisitive blue eyes, and a childish grin spread across his unshaven face as he moved closer to the fatigued wizard. "Oh I know that look alright—trust me, we're all goin' through the same thing. What's yer name?"

It took a few moments for Tom to focus fully on the man before him; he was among Muggles now, creatures he despised, who had sent him along a self-destructive path while they abandoned, disparaged and ignored him. He wasn't "going through the same thing" as these despicable beings; they could never understand the pain and anger they'd caused him to feel over the years. But now was not the time to concern himself with these thoughts; he simply acted, as he always did, and calmly spoke as if he'd known this curious Muggle all his life.

"Riddle—Lance Corporal Tom Riddle. And you…mate?"

"Fife, Samuel Fife, hailin' from Newcastle Ireland. Call me Sam though, else it all sounds a bit too formal, ya know? Anyway, nice to meet you." He held his hand out and waited patiently for Tom to participate in the cordial shake; after Tom recognized the friendly gesture, he forced a smile and raised his arm.

"I tell ya," Sam continued while tightening the laces on his boot, "this'll be our best trip yet."

Tom scoffed in disbelief. "Really? You know we're headed for the Ardennes, right? Meaning dense shrubs, trees, steep mountains, and," he added, rising from where he slept, "it's winter."

"Well sure, that's all bloody awful—but it's the 33rd's last deployment. We're done after this mate, we're totally done." He turned to gaze at the pale azure that peeked over the horizon, and looked back at Tom with a sparkling intensity in his ice-blue eyes. "It's the only thing that stands between me an' true happiness. And once this mission's over, I'll be with her again."

"Her?" Tom could do nothing to stifle his skeptical reaction. Cramped on a tiny boat, soon to be forced to trudge through the snow with inadequate supplies and fend for his miserable life, and all this naïve twit could think about was a _woman_?

Sam laughed, and slapped Tom affectionately on the back. "You say that word like it's poison, Riddle—you're a quare hawk, ain't cha? O'course it's a her, m'lady back home—her name's Keira. The most beautiful name in all of Ireland if yeh ask me. Got no one of your own then, Riddle?"

"No," he answered quickly. "No one." Those he brought to his chambers could barely be called companions; and those who pursued the dark arts with him were much more akin to servants than friends. And she…Nadia knew who he really was, but she didn't…she would never accept him. He returned from his thoughts to find himself facing a perplexed expression on the young soldier's freckled face. "Really no need for such things at times like these, you know?"

"Try tellin' yerself that when you're dodgin' bullets, mate. The only thing that saves ya is thinkin' of the one thing that makes you happy, be that a woman or whatever you English gacks dream about." He laughed amusedly but was soon interrupted by the stentorian voice of Staff Sergeant Colin T. Worthington.

"Alright you two, quit wanking each other and focus on the battle plans Colonel Frist is laying out on the front deck. We're landing in Antwerp in less than an hour, so ready your weapons in case we're ambushed by those dirty Jerries. You better be prepared this time Fife, you fuckin' cockhead—fondling those rosary beads of yours isn't going to save your life you know. Well? What are you waiting for pretty boy?" he bellowed, staring at Tom with unwarranted fury in his sleep-deprived eyes. "Take your Irish nancy and head up deck!"

"Worthington's a right caffler, 'e is," Sam muttered as they walked toward the crowd of soldiers. "He's always hated me, never gives me a fockin' break."

"What did you do to him?" Tom found himself asking. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone that angry unless they had some reason."

Sam laughed briefly, stopping to face Tom's stoic features. "You serious? The English don't need a reason to hate lads like me, Riddle. I'm Irish. For them, it's reason enough."

Tom scoffed, lowering his heavy pack to the ground. "Yeah, right—he hates you because you come from a country that's right next door? You practically have the same lineage. Seriously, what did you do to him?"

"Jay-sus, Riddle, I dunno what planet you come from! I _am _bein' serious—the English 'ave hated us for as long as anyone can remember. Protestants against Catholics, from the seventeenth century on—whatever school you went to clearly didn't have a decent 'istory teacher—this conflict's as old as time, and it's killed millions, mate."

"Millions? Over…religion?" Tom repeated, trying to process such a seemingly foreign notion.

"Yeah. Over religion. It's like we let the smallest fockin' differences build up in our minds until we justify the unjustifiable. Murder. Over religion."

Sam shook his head, sighing, and turned to walk toward the front deck. Tom, meanwhile, stood for a moment, staring at the dark land mass that converged before them. _Murder_, he repeated quietly. _Over nothing_.

His reflective thoughts were interrupted by the startling sound of artillery shells exploding beneath the thick blanket of fog beyond the port of Antwerp; it looked like the Germans anticipated Allied reinforcements after all.

_Bollocks, _he thought to himself. _I don't even know how to use this bloody gun._

------------

"I don't even know how to use this. I—I can't do this, I really can't." Nadia's voice faltered noticeably as she attempted to explain her nursing inadequacies while holding two syringes and four vials of morphine in her shaking hands; she and two other volunteer nurses stood over the bodies of two wounded soldiers in the small hospital that lay in the woods of Liège.

"You're kidding, right? Didn't you say you were just transferred from the 12th Evacuation Hospital in Normandy? Nadia, really, this is nothing compared to what you faced over there—get it together, for Christ's sake!" Wendy Ferrell's dark brown eyes stared at the young girl disapprovingly; she was no more than twenty-five years herself, but she had seen and felt enough to not be jilted in such situations. "All the staff surgeons are in the operating room trying to put together what's left of the 106th Infantry Division—we airlifted you and the others _specifically _because we thought you were experienced in this area! So get to it!"

Nadia's wide eyes betrayed a world of fear as she stood gaping at the young woman before her: "I…I—I—don't…"

Nurse Ferrell reached her hands to grab either side of Nadia's quivering cheeks, and began to speak with a forceful tone that bordered on unfettered rage. "Listen: do whatever the bloody hell you have to do, but do it now. We don't have time for this. We have our own patients to attend to. Get it done."

Her words echoed in Nadia's mind until a strikingly obvious idea registered with a single knowing blink. She took a deep breath and turned to the two men whose bullet wounds seemed to be bleeding more by the second. "Very well then," she said, suddenly calmed. "Give me some space, and close the dividers on your way out."

The nurses turned to each other, seemingly satisfied with her sudden confidence, and left without a word.

Nadia quietly placed the morphine aside despite the incoherent protests coming from Wesley Banks, a Second Lieutenant whose arm housed two 9 mm bullets. From her gray canvas bag, she pulled a large vial of Sleeping Draught, and brought it to the lips of the delirious soldier. "I'm just giving you something to ease the pain; be still now," she whispered in a singsong voice. She proceeded to pour the fluid into the mouth of the second soldier, who gladly drank in hopes of respite from the searing pain in his abdomen.

"What is this rubbish?!" Wesley moaned loudly, his face contorted in response to the bitter nature of dark liquid. "Are you trying to poison us? You're working for the Germans, aren't you, you Nazi bitch!"

"No you dolt, I am not working for the Germans, I'm jus—" She barely had time to finish her sentence before both men collapsed into comatose state; she wasted no time in pulling her wand from the bag and pointing it subtly at Wesley's wounds; it did occur to her that this could be quite a terrible idea, but she figured she didn't have much to lose anyway. "_Accio bullets!_"

The two metal balls flew from the man's arm directly into her hands, thankfully with much less force than she'd anticipated; the bleeding, however, continued unabated. She moved closer to his body, using sterile towels to soak up what she could; she hoped beyond reason that the bullets hadn't penetrated any bone, and as she took a closer look at the bleeding mess of muscle tissue and fat deposits, she realized how lucky she—and he—was. Relieved that her task was made slightly easier, she whispered the spell she'd so often used on herself to heal after her violent encounters with Tom. "_Episkey._" She repeated it quietly for each discernable cut in the tissue until she sealed the epidermis on his arm. It looked as if the fair-haired boy had been untouched, but there was only one way to find out if her fraudulent medicinal skills had proven effective.

"_Rennervate!_" she said loudly, and held her breath in frightened anticipation.

"Wha—you! You bloody spy!" Wesley's torso sprung suddenly from the bed as he pointed menacingly at the young nurse, who stood at his bedside covered in sweat and breathing unevenly. Thankfully, her wand had dropped from her hands the moment he'd awoken.

"Oh thank god!" she exclaimed, briefly throwing her arms around his stiffened body. "I just—well, it looks like you'll be okay," she said in a softer tone that attempted to veil her excitement. "You just don't know how difficult it was for me to do that spel—er, surgery."

"Surgery my arse! Where am I? In a prisoner-of-war camp? You whore, you—" He unexpectedly stopped his tirade so as to examine the arm which he used to threaten Nadia by pointing at her tired frame. "It's…it's better," he began, a slow smile spreading across his face. "No, it's not better—it's like I was never wounded to begin with! By god, you're—oh god, I know what you are…" His wide hazel eyes stared at the nurse with an alarming intensity, and he raised himself on his knees to meet her frightened face.

Nadia swallowed slowly and averted his glare, stepping back from the bed as subtly as she could. "It's not what you think," she began, looking back at him with pleading eyes. "Please don't te—"

"You're an angel, an absolute angel. Mum told me from the start of this thing that an angel would be watching over me so that I'd come home safe, and here you are. My angel." He reached to his chest and pulled a thin gold chain from his neck; a small, simple cross hung delicately at its end, and he pressed it to his lips with his eyes closed in reverence.

At that moment, four men were brought through the dilapidated entrance of the small hospital on stretchers, each apparently yelling for something or someone to help quickly; but their calls were not in English. They wore the dark brown uniforms of the National Socialists, and their belligerent manner reinforced this truth.

Nadia could not pull her eyes away from the men as her face remained frozen; her mind began to race with memories and thoughts she had not encountered in two years' time.

"You're an angel," the young soldier repeated softly, turning to look at her again. "The world out there is absolute hell with everyone screaming, fighting, murdering—but you could never be part of that. You're a true angel, Miss, you really are."

--------------


	16. Chapter 16

"_We don't have to play this game, you know. I quite dislike games, actually. What I do like," he said, his calloused hands tightening their grip on her bony shoulders, "is the truth. So tell me the truth, and this ridiculous game can end. Where are they hiding, child, just tell me where they're hiding." _

_She shivered when he touched her, but she was already shaking from the unnerving combination of unbridled fear and cold, damp air which clung to her exposed flesh, aided by the occasional drop of icy water from the basement ceiling. She wondered if it was light outside. _

"_So you can't find your voice all of a sudden? Such a departure from when we found you, you foul-mouthed brat." He delivered a generous slap to her tear-streaked face; its echo resounded chillingly throughout the enclosed room. She breathed in sharply and squeezed her eyes shut in response to the pain, but was forced to open them again as his long fingers dug into her cheeks._

"_Look at me, you worthless, filthy Jew. LOOK AT ME!" His stone grey eyes bore into hers; she feebly averted them by staring at his impeccably pressed woolen coat, adorned with daunting medals that glistened in gold and bronze: the Kondor Legion Cross, with its four spears plunging into a swastika pendant; the National Emblem, with an eagle clutching a wreath and swastika in its sharp talons; the Ritterkreuz that hung rigidly from his collar by a red, white and black ribbon._

"_We've gotten reports that over fifty families that should have been accounted for have gone missing. Finding you wandering in the city where they were reported to be hiding is no small coincidence. So speak up, else I'll make sure that you never leave this shithole. At least, not alive."_

_She offered a stare void of emotion; though terrified when they caught her, she found over the course of her internment that she had an unusual talent for hiding her thoughts, erecting a wall of poise and reservation against their unrelenting efforts. And when they touched her, this was where she lived her life: behind that wall, in the smallest corner of her mind, where their greedy hands dissolved into nothingness, where their vile mouths could not utter vile speech._

"_Putzkammer, Stryker, enter now. Jetzt. Jetzt!" Two young soldiers entered the room, nursing their rifles steadily in their arms. They bore the Knight's Cross on their uniforms, and a fierce curiosity flickered in their eyes as they observed her naked form._

"_I don't have time for this bullshit. The Soviets are pushing us back to Kharkov and the Einsatzgruppen need our help cleaning out the filth over there. This won't be pretty if Herr Himmler finds out that my team somehow managed to lose fifty fucking families. So," he said, turning back to Nadia, "It seems that this little girl has forgotten how to talk. Perhaps," he looked at the soldiers with a knowing glare, "you can teach her how to scream."_

_------------------------- _

"Nadia? Nadia, what's going on?" Nurse Ferrell's voice assumed a calm, inquisitive tone as she examined the young girl's face. Her eyes were lost, almost expressionless, and her lips were forced to part slightly so as to modulate her irregular breathing.

"Why are…they…here?" she murmured tonelessly. Her eyes did not stray from the sight of the four men; two were demonstrably in pain as blood from their abdomens poured graciously unto the white sheets beneath them. Another was limping beside the beds, motioning and calling for the doctors to help; the fourth lay quietly on the stretcher, and it was not immediately apparent as to what injury he suffered.

Wendy subtly moved in front of Nadia in an attempt to force her to focus elsewhere; but the young woman's listless brown eyes shifted slightly right, still staring in the direction of the soldiers.

"Any wounded soldiers—from either side—who come into Red Cross areas and require treatment must be treated. Same goes for allied hospitals, as dictated by the Geneva Convention. You knew that Nadia. Their presence here isn't all that unusual—"

"They don't belong here. They deserve…" her voice trailed for a moment, and an inaudible breath lingered tentatively on her lips. But as she inhaled, her eyes suddenly regained focus and she returned Wendy's stare with resolve. "Finish my surgery—the second one has been sedated but I haven't begun operating. Second Lieutenant Banks is healed and ready for rehabilitation. I'll take care of our new…_patients._" She nearly pushed Nurse Ferrell aside in her rapid stride toward the frantic soldiers, and deliberately ignored Wendy's calls for her to stop.

She did halt her movement, however, several yards from the men and turned to face her former workstation. Wendy looked distinctively disoriented, and though she pleaded with Nadia to come back toward her, the girl heard nothing.

"_Accio wand_," she said calmly, her hand poised to deftly receive it. The small oak and dragon-heartstring wand flew from Lieutenant Banks' bedside into her rigid grasp; the floating object immediately caused several nurses as well as the German soldiers to stare in alarm. She continued to march toward them, the loud clack of her low-heeled shoes echoing throughout the ward; upon reaching the low-level officer whose injured leg forced him to topple backward in shock, she raised her wand to his throat and met his frightened gaze with merciless ferocity.

"For my mother, my father, my brothers and sisters, for my Jewish brethren that you've slaughtered…and for the hollow shell of a being that you made me today…for all of this, you will die."

---------------

"_You will die, you Jewish whore. Today you will die." Kommodore Ackermann hastily buttoned his pants, and lifted his chin arrogantly while staring down at her shivering form. "It's sad to waste such…delectable flesh…but since you refuse to talk, you've served the only purpose you have. Our silent little slut." He bent down and reached his hand toward her cheek; she felt bile rise in her throat as his rough skin brushed against hers. He was older, and the coarse brown stubble that covered most of his face could not hide the subtle lines and dark circles that clung to his steel-grey eyes; she turned away from his covetous gaze, and continued to hold her malnourished body tightly with what little strength she had left._

"_Are you ashamed, meine kleine hure? What, may I ask, is there left to hide?" He laughed heartily as he stood up, turning toward the flimsy desk on which his weapons lay. "I wonder which one we shall use…the Luger is just too messy, not to mention a bit too quick for my enjoyment…the rifle is even worse…ah yes, the dagger. This should suffice." He delicately pulled the weapon from its black metal scabbard; gold tone metal fillings adorned the handle, and Nadia's breath caught in her throat when she saw the glistening dark steel of the eight-inch blade._

_She could hide from their lechery and repulsive touches by retreating to her mind, but where could she hide when faced with death? Perhaps it would be good to die, she thought, for then I wouldn't have to remember any of this. Perhaps I will come into life at another time, in another place, where I will have strength and control and peace of mind. But if this is my only chance at life…_

_I don't want to die. Not today. Not in this place. Not by his filthy, unworthy hands._

_Her thoughts were interrupted by the feeling of the cold basement floor against her back; he pinned her down forcefully, allowing the blade to linger over her body until he found a suitable place for it to plunge. "Now where shall we begin…"_

_Concentrate. Concentrate. The words she needed to say stood hesitantly on her pursed lips, but in the absence of a wand, doubt clouded her thoughts and poisoned her resolve. Could she even speak? It had been so long…her throat burned with thirst…_

"_Oh how I'll miss our little indulgences…" He poised the dagger above the shivering flesh that covered the most private place on her body, a place they had desecrated day after day with their filthy hands and tainted daggers. "I suppose it would seem appropriate that we start here…" The blade sunk slowly into her flesh, drawing a jagged line across her pelvis; any thoughts she had dissipated into helpless screams. _

"_STOP! ST—Aarrrrggghhhh! Please, please…st—st—" They were no longer words, but incomprehensible fragments of speech that were drowned by the pain that coursed through her body. "St-st—"_

"_Don't bother trying, whore, it's not like anyone can hear y—"_

"_STUPEFY!" She screamed the word with such vigor and such desperation that, despite the lack of magical artifact, the spell possessed extraordinary strength: Kommodore Ackermann's wide eyes briefly caught her frightened gaze before he fell unconscious, the blood-stained knife falling plainly from his hands. _

_She was breathing audibly and uncontrollably, but the surge of adrenaline that flooded her dilated veins motivated her to move, despite the pain, despite the shame and humiliation, despite the distress and fear. She had to move, elsewhere, somewhere, anywhere but here. _

_As she rose, a torrent of crimson spilled from the wound on her pelvis, its viscous warmth dripping down her shaking legs; she dropped to her hands and knees, struggling to remove the Kommodore's coat from his portly body, and tore at his undershirt, wrapping the fabric tightly around her waist in an attempt to stifle the flow of blood. As she pulled his wool coat over her naked shoulders, she momentarily savored the unfamiliar warmth that it held in its sturdy fibers, and found within it the strength to stand. But as she stole a glance at the man below her, she felt sick again, weak, tortured by this depraved, degenerate beast who now lay peacefully beneath her gaze. _

_Her ragged breaths and trembling body begged her to leave, to escape without a thought and heal and live as she was meant to; but her mind lingered, whispering dark thoughts, playing with her hesitant hands. Her fingers wrapped tentatively around its black and gold handle, and as she brought the blade toward her she shuddered at the sight of her blood spattered across its flawless steel. It would be washed away if she did this, she thought, cleansed of her blood and fear and pain._

_But as she pulled its jagged edge across the flesh that enclosed his throat, Kommodore Ackermann's blood did not displace her own, but merely covered it; the stain of her life in captivity remained on the blade, hiding beneath the stolen lives of others. _

--------------

"_Hexe!_ [Witch! She's a witch! Help me, please help me!" screamed the young soldier, a look of terror plastered on his petrified face.

"Nadia NO—!" Wendy's piercing voice seemed strained, but Nadia could not hear anything against the rapid beat of her own heart.

No one in the hospital dared to move, for fear of what wicked spells she would use against them; she was left alone with her thoughts, her long-forgotten memories that returned at this moment with frightening clarity. From time to time she recalled bits and pieces of these events, but only in the vaguest sense, as if she were looking through a thick haze that expertly concealed the entirety of those seven horrifying days.

She saw now that she had killed before. And she could kill again.

The two words that she had long dreamt of using boiled on her tongue; and when she chose to utter them, she knew she would do it calmly, softly, meaningfully, and the boy that stood before her would collapse into death with ease.

_She stared at the dagger; it turned a vibrant crimson, the blood of her ruthless captor. And her own as well. Part of her still stained the blade, no matter how many times she plunged it into his unmoving corpse. _

His pale skin turned even whiter as the blood drained from his face; it stood in shocking contrast to his raven-black hair and dark blue eyes, which now held a world of fear in their tourmaline hue.

Did he torture, rape and murder as well? Had he been there, would he have had mercy on her, would he have fetched her extra food and water when the others weren't standing guard? Would he have spoken to her with a gentle manner, would he have comforted her when she began to shake uncontrollably?

"…_bitte_…" he whispered, tears welling in his wide, fearful eyes. For a brief moment, she saw herself reflected in these glistening pools, a distorted image that firmly held a wand to his trembling throat.

_She stood in front of the mirror, tightly holding the wand in her right hand, and slowly pointed it toward her throbbing temple. It had been weeks, and the shaking would not relent, the memories would not fade, the warmth would not return._

_She closed her eyes._

"Obliviate."

_She said it again and again, louder and louder, with confidence and resolve, feeling a long-forgotten release with every repetition._

"Obliviate." She turned to the nurses, tapping her wand gently in the air with each utterance of the spell.

"_Obliviate._"

Everyone in the ward had felt its effect, initially feeding her a blank stare, but in a matter of moments returning to their own work-related endeavors.

Everyone except for Second Lieutenant Wesley Banks. He continued to stare at her, mouth agape, unable to comprehend what he'd witnessed.

_Yes, I'm a witch_, she spoke to his mind. _But not one who desires to harm. I did not erase your memory because I need your help, Wesley. I need you to take me to St. Hubert, a town that I believe is a few miles from here. Please. Please help me with this. Please._

He was a religious man, a good man, a man who didn't believe in any power besides that of the Almighty. And here was a woman who embraced everything that he was taught to fear and despise, with her darkly seductive appearance and frightening powers from a world he could hardly fathom, a world that the Bible described in the most lurid and macabre terms.

But she had saved him. She had healed him, this young girl, this lost soul who sought his understanding and guidance. He looked into her pleading eyes that now glazed with tears, eyes that spoke to him with soft sincerity and reflected the last remaining hint of innocence that his world hadn't managed to take from her.

He nodded.

--------------

A/N: You all have been seriously amazing for sticking with me and this story-- I really do appreciate the reviews and in all honesty, that's what keeps me writing. Just to clear up any confusion, the four men in the hospital ward were not the ones who had tortured her two years ago, but of course her rage forced her to believe that all of them were responsible for her personal tragedy. And the reason why this event hadn't come to light earlier (though with her dislike of Tom and unusually strong legilimency skills, one could see its effects) is because she chose to erase that memory two years ago; afterward she came to Hogwarts. Thanks again for the reviews!


	17. Chapter 17

The bright bursts of light above Antwerp reflected beautifully off of the delicate snowfall; if one were not at war, it would seem as if the 33rd Armoured Brigade were entering an ethereal city of lights.

"Stop starin' at the sky you fockin' bogtrotter—take Riddle with you, capture the watch tower to the East; Michaels, Campbell and Powdrill take the theatre; the rest of you split into small groups, move to take the lines we mapped out and for fock's sake, stick to the shadows! Use the night to your advantage, it's the only time those sharp-shooting bastards can't see your white arses!" Staff Sergeant Worthington's voice nearly cracked as the men docked; the port had been taken last week for the Allies, but a mere 200 yards beyond was transformed into a No Man's Land that switched hands every other day.

Unwilling to spend any more time in Worthington's hostile presence, Lance Corporal Samuel Fife tugged at his newfound friend's satchel to indicate a move to the East. Tom's eyes grew wide at the sight of Antwerp's towering buildings and his muscles grew tense every time he heard the cackling of gunfire miles away; yet his demeanor seemed more curious than scared. He observed them quietly, these unfamiliar soldiers with whom he now entrusted his life. They moved quickly to complete their objectives, together like brothers. There were barely any questions asked, no infighting, no complaints; how strong a force man could be when united against an enemy.

"It's gettin' dark further down the alley, and you damn well know those Jerries are starin' right down at us from that watch tower. I'm goin' to sneak ahead an' see how many places we'll have to hide when we get close—cover me, would'ja now?"

"With what?"

"Fer fock's sake Riddle, this en't a time for jokes!"

"I wasn't—"

"Jus' make sure I en't bein' followed, alright? An' if they start shootin', you don't go lookin' for me now. You just go right on and hit 'em back, and keep safe."

"Sure—yeah, I'll…I'll do that then. Er, what…what weapons do you think they're using, from that tower?" He barely knew why he asked the question, as if his horribly inadequate knowledge of Muggle weaponry would somehow help their mission.

"Sniper rifle, likely. And definitely some MP43s—those nasty things came out last year, puttin' our submachine guns to shame. Quick and deadly, an' those bullets never stop comin'. Alright, I'm off—g'luck mate." He gave a sincere smile, but turned around too quickly to see Tom reciprocating with a slightly worried nod.

As Sam's figure quietly disappeared into the shadows, Tom's eyes drifted to the elusive watchtower; a crack of gunfire suddenly resounded in his ears, accompanied by sharp cries from soldiers on the ground, no more than 100 yards away. As the gunfire drew closer, Tom raised his weapon unsteadily, trying to discern in the darkness how he could check the chamber to ensure it was fully loaded and unlocked; he had barely enough time to familiarize himself with the M1 Garand before he heard footsteps approaching from behind.

"Fuck this." The weapon fell from his right shoulder as he drew his wand with his left hand, silently and rapidly casting a disillusionment charm on himself. He turned quickly to see two German soldiers rounding the building corner where he hid. The sensation of the charm was uncomfortable, but not nearly so much as the sight of two angered men mere feet away, brandishing an array of lethal weapons that coincidentally pointed directly at him. There was not a moment to think about it.

"_Avada Kedavra!__Avada Kedavra!_" Two bright green bursts of light surged forward from where he hid, hitting the soldiers squarely in the chest. Not a sound escaped their mouths as their bodies fell limply to the ground; Tom lingered for a moment with his wand in the air, breathing heavily, rapidly, as his heart quickened its pace in a strange blend of fear and excitement. Mostly excitement, he realized, as a teeth-baring smile grew on his lips.

He maintained his background-blending façade as he ran toward the watch tower; he easily spotted Sam crouched behind an abandoned vehicle, carefully loading bullets into his Colt M1911. Tom realized he'd have to approach him subtly so as to avoid being shot by accident, and with a quick thought removed the disillusionment charm to appear plainly in front of him. "It's me," he said quietly.

"Oy shit Riddle!" he exclaimed in a strong whisper, dropping the Colt between his knees. "Good Christ, where the fock did you come from?! Ay swear mate, you've got a mighty bit o' creep to yeh."

"Sorry for the scare—look, I need to tell you something—"

"Seriously mate, you choose the worst times for these things. First your ruddy joke, an' now it's secret-sharin' time? I dunno if you 'eard, but there's been a good load of shootin' round here. C'mon, move to yer right, behind those crates, quickly mate, quickly!"

He pushed Tom forward before he had a chance to protest, but as the two men scuttled from behind the car, a torrent of gunfire sprayed bullets in every direction around them. Tom embraced the ground behind the crates as his breath caught in his throat—it was the closest he'd ever been to uncontrolled, unpredictable danger, and he found the thought extremely discomforting, especially given how he'd always been so in control of his life, not to mention the lives of others. But now, at this moment, his eyes fixed on the cold concrete beneath him, his legs two inches short of the downpour of piercing metal, he felt something akin to helplessness, particularly when he realized that Sam was not with him.

* * *

"Are you even going to speak to me?" She asked the question delicately, and was careful not to pause for too long.

Second Lieutenant Wesley Banks trudged on silently in the snow, the crunching of his boots in perfect sync with the soft clink of gun metal against his water tin. "Is there something you'd like me to say?" he asked finally.

She continued to walk behind him, a sneer coming across her face. "Sure. Like, 'how are you, Nadia? Are you cold, Nadia?' Or even, 'What's it like being a witch from a totally different world, Nadia?' But you know, those are just _suggestions_. Feel free to say anything that comes to mind." Her annoyed tone implied a rolling of the eyes, and Wesley didn't need to look back to see it.

"Look, I made you a promise, I'm here to keep it, end of story." He continued his steady pace through the snow-capped brush, pausing only briefly to take a swig of water. He silently raised the tin in offering to her.

"No thanks, my throat's not too dry. Probably because I haven't been talking all that much."

"Ok, fine. Fine! What do you want me to say?! Thanks for sparing my life and memory?" He looked at her finally, shaking his head in disbelief. "Nadia you—you looked like you were going to kill that man—those men—and then you began to erase the thoughts of those around you, and—I mean—do they _teach_ you to do that? To _mess_ with people like that?"

"Wesley, you don't understand—"

"No, I don't. But frankly, I'm not sure I want to." He turned to continue down the narrow path to St. Hubert; Nadia could hear his labored exhalations, which seemed to come more from frustration than fatigue. "There was something about you that made me agree to this. You…you looked pained…hurt in some way. I pitied you in that moment. But I'm thinking now, what if—what if you made me feel that way? Like put a spell on me or something?"

"I would never—"

A faint wailing interrupted their march; it came from a deeper part of the forest, but not too far off from the winding trail they followed. Without thinking, and with little regard for Wesley's protests, Nadia veered from the trail, tearing through the dense shrubs to find the source of such pained exclamations. The sight was unnerving: at least fifteen men's bodies lay strewn in the cold snow, some tangled around trees and young saplings, others barely identifiable as bodies-- pieces of limbs, brains and entrails had been torn asunder and flung far from the site by unforgiving German bullets. Nadia swallowed the bile that rose in her throat as she struggled to breathe; the impulse was overwhelming, and she fell to her knees as putrid brown vomit surged from her throat and unto the immaculate white snow before her. What was this place that she had come to? What was this impersonal Hell she had stumbled into, where the young fall prey to cold metal and colder ice, where hope cannot help but vanish into wisps of gunpowder smoke that hangs menacingly in the dark sky above? _Quiet your thoughts, stupid girl! _Her body screamed for release but her mind held her firmly in place. _Have you not learned anything from the nurses in Liège? From their courage and fearlessness?_

She transfigured a nearby sapling into a canvas tent of sorts, erecting it with a flick of her wand and casting a warming spell to comfort its occupants. Aware of how conspicuous these men were to passerby, she enabled a disillusionment charm strengthened by the utterance _Cave Inimicum_ to protect the wounded soldiers from further harm. As she silently knelt at the side of one young man, healing his wounds as best she could while whispering comforting words that she scarcely believed, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Is…is there anything you'd like me to do?" He felt ashamed for having doubted her valor and sincerity, and he perfectly conveyed his apology with downcast eyes and a softened tone.

She took his hand in hers, nodding in understanding. "Talk to them. Talk to the men who can hear you, and tell them…tell them that…" She paused as an overwhelming sadness came to her eyes. He knew what she was going to say, and began speaking softly to those who still had breath in their struggling lungs.

_Tell them everything is going to be alright. _Lie to them.

* * *

_Sam, can you hear me? Don't move, just don't move. You'll be alright mate. Promise._ He tried to speak to the young soldier's mind, to communicate some sort of comfort and hope for what lay ahead. But it was almost as if the words disappeared into nothingness; there was no cognition to receive them, no conscious to understand them; Tom had never felt that void before, the emptiness that swallowed words and thoughts. Samuel Aaron Fife was dead.

Tom pointed his wand at a nearby cargo container: "_Confringo!_" he yelled as it exploded violently, sending beams of steel and iron flying through the air and crashing down upon the rubble the polluted the city's main square. The explosion temporarily distracted the machine gunners away from Sam's body, which lay eerily still in the sparse moonlight. The blood and bullets painted an unrecognizable portrait of the young soldier, but the photo in his breast pocket was still visible; Tom plucked it carefully from his shredded garments. A gentle, fair-haired woman stared at him from the bloodstained black-and-white picture, holding her hand up in a cordial wave as her eyes and smile sparkled with the summer sun. _Keira_. He placed the photo on Sam's unmoving chest, and lifted the stains from his clothes and body with a whisper. "_Tergeo_."

He watched as Sam's face became familiar again, but his flesh was still contorted in an unnatural manner at places where the bullets seared and tore the skin; Tom continued to heal the wounds until he looked like an untouched soldier, brought to his death by some unknown natural force. Tom was slightly uncertain of the next spell he sought to cast; there were no guarantees that Sam's body would—or could—travel so far without the spellcaster. But even if his efforts failed, he truly believed that any other place would be better—at least more respectable—than the cold gravel Sam now lay upon.

Tom lifted his wand, closing his eyes and focusing with utmost concentration on the body before him: in a haze of blue light, the remains of Samuel Fife disappeared. Whether he landed in Newcastle or Reykjavic, Tom could not have guessed; but at least he was not in the nightmarish world that Antwerp had become. The young wizard focused with pleasure on the new task at hand, and, running behind the illusion of camouflage, he entered the watchtower with a bloodthirsty smirk on his face.

* * *

"Two are doing ok, but not for long if they remain in the cold." She flicked her wand at one of their submachine guns, and Wesley stared in awe as it transfigured into a strangely modern looking wheelbarrow of sorts. "_Levicorpus_," she said softly, and the two vaguely mobile bodies fell gently on the hull. She silently cast a warming spell and disillusionment charm on the two men and the contraption that would carry them; handing Wesley a vial of dreamless sleep potion, she held his hand for a moment.

"I can find my way from here, Wesley. Thank you for your patience along the way. I know we…we may not have—"

"You needn't say a word, Nadia. If the U.S. Military rewarded women with the same honor as men, I'd bet my life you'd get the Medal of Honor and then some."

She smiled shyly. "Please, take these men back to the hospital—they will be disguised for most of the way there, and the charm should wear off by the time you reach help. And…and if you need me, I'll—"

"I wouldn't dream of asking anything more of you, Nadia. You saved my life, you comforted those in death…just…I hope you find what you're looking for here. In the meantime, stay safe." He bent cordially and kissed her hand, leaving his lips to linger for a moment on her soft skin. His kind blue eyes looked into hers as he spoke: "I meant what I said, back at the hospital. You're an angel. Different form an' all, but still an angel."

With that, he turned to leave, tugging along the invisible men with ease. She took a deep breath, squinting at the dark path ahead; an indiscernible spatter of lights twinkled beyond the black bodies of perilously tall trees. _St. Hubert_. A shiver ran down her spine.

* * *

"_Mutilated?_ Vat the hell do you mean, _mutilated_?! Dese are the British and Americans we're talking about, not de facking _Russians!_ _Hast du einen Vogel?! Scheisse!_" Oberstleutnant Meier threw the carefully typewritten reports at his subordinate captain as he paced furiously back and forth behind his desk at the Berlin Command Office. "The things dey describe in this facking report can't be done by humans—it's _unmöglich_! Did the British enlist a _monster_, Hauptmann Ganesvoort? _Ein_ _biest_?!"

The young captain's eyes glazed with worry as he answered his superior in an uncertain tone. "I don't know how they did it, Lieutenant Colonel Meier, Sir, but…but the photos, the evidence…it's all there. Over forty of our best men, holding the port and city of Antwerp, were found…_disfigured_…around the battlegrounds…" He paused for a moment, trying to read the wide-eyed expression on Meier's face, then continued in a quiet voice. "There were reports of unusual depressions in their bodies, that weren't caused by any known object, Sir, and…and men turned into stone, and even some reports of our own men shooting at themselves and those in their troops, and—"

"_Das ist genug!_" he shrieked, slamming his fist into the wooden table before him. He took a decidedly calmer tone as he walked toward his young subordinate, raising a restrained index finger to his chin. "Dere cannot be any leaks of dis report to other units, you understand?"

Captain Ganesvoort nodded silently.

"Here is vat we vill do. I vant you to get me Major Kirsch from the Kroatische-SS-Freiwilligen Division. Dey are elite, the best division of the Schutzstaffel; they will track down dis…problem…and make sure something like this doesn't happen again, you understand? I have…_a_ _feeling_…that whatever attacked our _soldaten_ was not of this world, Ganesvoort. Yes," he said with an air of foreboding, "I believe some lines have been crossed here, as they were in the war before this one, the war that tried to take from the Fatherland what was rightfully his."

A befuddled look crossed the face of the captain, as he dared question Lieutenant Colonel Meier's remarks with an inquisitive raised eyebrow.

Meier smiled at the sight of the confused young officer, and turned to seat himself behind his desk. "Ah, yes, it was before your time, Ganesvoort, long before your time. But they used it at Arras and at Amiens, the Battle of the Lys and the Second Battle of Marne… 'it' being, of course, _magic._"

* * *

It felt like she'd spent hours waiting in front of the small inn, her now muddied boots tapping the snow-laden cobblestones that provided a path through the village of St. Hubert. _They had been here_, she thought to herself, holding her white cloak tightly against her shoulders. _They walked across these same stones, they passed by this very Inn dozens of times, maybe hundreds even_…she would ask the villagers what they'd seen, if they knew if any prisoners were taken, and where they were taken to. _Or if they know where the bodies are buried_. The sadness overwhelmed her, and her muffled sobs seemed to be the only sound to echo through the streets in the darkness of night. She scarcely heard him approach her from behind.

"Nadia." His eyes refused to believe that anything real stood in front of them, as if she were a beautiful illusion against a fictional backdrop in a dream-like world. She looked gaunt, thin, cold; but a warm sincerity still pooled in her golden-brown eyes as she looked at him, and her unruly black curls framed a softness in her face that he hadn't seen before. Her garments bore the scars of blood, mire, vomit and ice, but she wore them like a gown, and donned her blood-spattered cap like a halo.

She gasped in disbelief when she saw him; his hair was hidden neatly underneath the brown military cap, but a few loose tendrils fell across his forehead and barely obscured his vision. His vision…_those eyes_…still emeralds that sparkled in the faint moonlight, but now an ever-so-subtle hint of _red_ seemed to emerge from his unblinking irises. He stood taller and poised himself confidently; while smears of blood decorated his uniform, a symphony of gunpowder and dirt danced on his hands and face, and he had never looked more determined.

"I've helped—" she began.

"I've killed—" he started.

"—so many," they said in quiet unison.

A blanket of silence hung in the damp air, as gentle snowflakes began to fall from the sky.


	18. Chapter 18

They merely stared at each other for a moment as the icy wind pushed at the dense forest trees and pulled at their thin military garments. Nadia's discerning eyes finished surveying the young man before her and she finally spoke.

"You killed a good deal then, did you? I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. So the rifle suited you well?" Curiously, she could find no trace of the standard-issue weapons and ammunition that most soldiers carried protectively at their sides. "Good god Tom, you didn't—"

"When it's my life or theirs, I fight any way I can. I just happen to be better with a wand," he said quickly, clutching the long branch of English yew tightly in his right hand. "It's not like they didn't _deserve _it, Nadia. In fact, when I cast the _Cruciatus_ curseon a few of them they immediately began confessing all sorts of wretched things," he chuckled, a subtle smirk crossing his lips. "Of course, I didn't _understand_ most of what they were saying, but one may always assume those filthy Muggles would naturally do unforgivable things—you should've seen how helpless they were, Nadia, how desperately they begged when I—"

Nadia turned abruptly and began walking toward the inn, trying hold back the anger his callous words ignited in her. So he had tortured them. But what was she expecting, bringing Tom-"bow-at-my-feet-and-play-my-sick-games"-Riddle to the European theater of war? Of course he would use them to hone his already frighteningly powerful skills; of course he would murder with no regard for the consequences. Her pace was so fast that when he latched onto her forearm she nearly fell backward; the pain penetrated to the bone as he tightened his grasp.

"Don't you dare walk away from me," he warned in a low voice. "I'm here because of you. You wanted this. So don't go on pretending you're above it, Nadia, because though you wear that mask of innocence so well, I know there's something darker in you, I _feel it_, I _see it_, and in fact, I'd bet a million galleons that you can't bear hearing about those I've gotten _rid of_ because you want so desperately to forget your _own_ sins."

Her nostrils flared in anger as she pulled her arm away; with her left hand, she immediately grabbed her wand and pointed it squarely at his chest. Tom was initially shocked by her response, but was quick to reciprocate the threatening gesture as he raised his wand to her quivering neck.

"Your move," he smiled teasingly.

She closed her eyes in silence as the tip of her wand illuminated, indicating a spell was taking effect; Tom didn't bother casting any sort of torturous counter-spell as he quickly realized she was performing a transfiguration of his clothing. When she had finished, she transfigured her own uniform to reflect that of the National Socialists.

"We don't want to look like outsiders here," she said in an unaffected tone. She raised her eyes to the enormous red and black flags that hung from the surrounding buildings; the inn, the church and several homes were adorned with swastikas and iron crosses, both of which glimmered chillingly in the pale moonlight. If she couldn't bear the sight of Tom Riddle before, she had every reason to look away from him now; in his fitting black SS uniform, complete with a bold armband and two white oblique Sig runes on his breast pocket, he bore a unsettling resemblance to the faceless men who had violated her in her past, the monsters who stole every shred of dignity she possessed as a youth of merely sixteen.

Tom immediately sensed her discomfort, but decided not to push the matter. He was silently intrigued by the girl who boldly dragged her soaking boots through the snow in front of him, who chose to greet _him_, the only familiar face from her own world, with a look of defiance rather than gratitude and relief.

"Seeing as how it's a bit too dark to go digging around this town for answers, I suggest we stop to rest at the inn," he began, hoping his suggestion would slow her down for a moment. She turned to face him. "Added to that," he continued, "the fact that both of us probably haven't eaten much in the last two days."

As much as the adrenaline coursing through her veins begged her to continue, to find the peace of mind she had been seeking so restlessly for the last forty-eight hours, the mention of food made her stomach protest angrily, as if becoming an entity wholly separate from the rest of her aching organs. "Hand me those leaves, then," she said with a sigh of fatigue, pointing at the dead pile of foliage that clogged the gutters outside the Inn.

Tom knew immediately what she intended, and transfigured the bundle of leafy matter into hundreds of Wehrmacht Reichsmarks, the Nazi-branded standard of currency in Germany's inflated economy. She coolly approached him face to face, and, raising an eyebrow while meeting his gaze, snatched several banknotes from his hands.

"Two rooms," was all she said as she pushed open the heavy wooden doors.

* * *

Nadia was hardly prepared for the sight that greeted her in the warm confines of _Le Domaine_, the only inn for prospective visitors to St. Hubert.

It wasn't so much the overwhelming number of soldiers who were laughing, drinking and reveling in the music of Richard Strauss and Li Stadelmann in the dining hall; nor was it the offensive insignia that now decorated the log-cabin-like rooms of the formerly cozy inn; it was, surprisingly, the diminutive old woman who attended the front desk who most shocked Nadia.

"_Madame Fournier_," she whispered in astonishment, unable to conceal her wide-eyed stare from anyone who bothered to look at her in that moment. Only when she felt a strong nudge from behind as Tom pushed ahead did she realize the other happenings on the ground floor.

"One room, please," Tom asked the woman in the best German accent he could muster, casually displaying three hundred Reichsmarks on the counter-top. "King-size bed, if available," he smiled back at Nadia.

"No—" she began, swiftly approaching the front desk. She hadn't hoped to face Mrs. Fournier at this moment, shamefully wearing the clothing of the monsters who had devastated the small town of St. Hubert, but Tom's impertinent suggestions forced her to protest. "Two rooms, please, not one." Her voice was unusually quiet, and Tom turned to look at her curiously.

_Why so shy, Nadia?_

She didn't answer his thought, and erected a powerful wall against any of his underhanded mind attacks since she figured he would dig for the answer regardless of her decision to share or not. But as Mrs. Fournier looked up at the young couple, Tom found that he wouldn't have to search for an explanation after all.

"_Mon Dieu!_" she nearly shrieked, stepping backward toward the wall. "_Nadia?_ _C'est toi?_" Tears began to well in her eyes, but quickly disappeared as she took in the sight of the young girl who had worked for her the summer before she fled, who aided her in the kitchen and who used to greet customers at the front desk with a genuinely warming smile. "You're…you're a nurse for these…" She seemed to restrain herself around Tom, whom she falsely believed to be another typically aggressive and insolent SS soldier, and simply lowered her head while searching for room keys. "Only one room is left," she said quietly, handing them a slip of paper with the room number and two tarnished metal keys. "The soldiers use my inn like a brothel," she stared pointedly at Nadia, "so there aren't very many availabilities." She narrowed her eyes at the young girl and spoke in a decidedly venomous tone. "Your parents would be so ashamed, _salope_!"

The hurtful words burned in her heart, and Nadia desperately pondered the option of speaking to dear Mrs. Fournier's mind, explaining how this was a guise to find out where her parents were and exact revenge on their captors. But it quickly occurred to her that Mrs. Fournier, sadly, would react much more violently to the thought of Nadia being a witch than the thought of her being a National Socialist—a prejudice that stemmed from an unfortunate accident seven years ago involving her son and an ill-advised Muggle field experiment commissioned by Beauxbatons.

"Ce n'est pas ce que tu crois," was all she could say in a rueful whisper.

* * *

The dining room was quite small; tables were shoved together haphazardly as large parties of soldiers sought to converse with each other over pitchers of lager and bottles of wine. Stories of heroism abounded; laughter was plentiful; all seemed utterly encouraged by good news from the home front, communicated by the trusted _Der Sturmer_, which was, not surprisingly, full of lies.

Nadia had smartly worked on a language charm in the days before their trip: they would think in English yet speak in German, and their ears would hear German but process only English. She was by no means the first to think of such a thing: apparently, misunderstandings due to the language barrier abounded in nineteenth century meetings between foreign dignitaries of the magical world, so much so that the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 was said to have been caused by such a miscommunication.

Tom and Nadia entered the room from a more discrete side entrance which incidentally placed them adjacent to the kitchen. As the smell of sauerkraut wafted toward them, their mouths began to salivate and their minds could focus on nothing else; upon spotting the two tired, seemingly starved youths, the weary cook placed slightly ungenerous portions of cabbage, potato noodles and spam-like sausage on two plates. Nadia sat down immediately at a small table in the corner of the dining room, and began to scarf down the meager meal before her without a word to her similarly engrossed partner.

They were only interrupted by the confident, inebriated being of Head Squad Leader Fritz Bruder towering over their diminutive table.

"So young _Sturmmann_, I see you've found a pretty little companion for tonight," he said loudly, turning to Nadia with pale blue eyes that struggled to stay focused. "The problem is, you didn't tell us a nursing unit was in town, eh _mein freund_?" He laughed jovially at first, but there was a threatening element in his manner which only grew as he eyed Nadia with lechery and eagerness.

Tom merely looked coolly at the portly, balding SS officer, taking great care in placing his fork down on the table and chewing the remainder of his last bite of food. "I was tasked with escorting Miss Haber to Antwerp, where there seems to be a shortage of nurses to care for those who were wounded not nine hours ago." He brought his napkin to his unshaven chin, dabbed, then warily folded and placed it back on the table. "We were just passing through, and figured we should stop to eat, _Hauptscharführer_."

Bruder let out a deep, boisterous laugh, and grabbed Nadia's arm with such force that she thought it would surely fracture. "_This _girl? _This _girl is a nurse for Der Fuhrer's noble army?!" Several soldiers turned to look at the scene, temporarily placing their glasses down and even moving toward the now exposed young couple. "We don't lie in this unit, _Sturmmann_, and it cannot be more obvious that you are lying. You dressed up some gypsy whore so you could bed her and not have to deal with the shame of being with someone beneath you! Someone far inferior to our race, to our _kind_!"

"Let me go you brute!" she screamed, trying desperately to wrench her arm away; she briefly looked at Tom with widened eyes, an unspoken plea for some form of help. This repulsive man was bringing attention to them when it was imperative that they be discreet, and surely that warranted some action on his part; but the look on her companion's face troubled her. His features were frozen in a strange sort of quiet contemplation, as if he were carefully considering the disturbing words of the portly Schutzstaffel minion.

"You play a good trick, mein freund—this costume," he said, grabbing at her garments, "looks just like the real thing! Ha, yes, you can dress her up to be something she isn't—but underneath, she's still filth, still not good enough for us!" He aggressively tore at her shirtdress, exposing a thin satin slip that barely covered her shaking legs; she shrieked and tried again to pull away from his vile grasp, but to no avail. Her eyes began to water as she realized that the only way she could rid of him was through magic, thus exposing her identity and ruining any chances of finding out the truth about her loved ones in this damned town. She felt helpless, but more than that she felt utterly betrayed.

The sensation of pain in her arm suddenly disappeared as Head Squad Leader Fritz Bruder awkwardly released her; he had a strange, empty look in his eyes as he spoke to her in front of the gaggle of soldiers who crowded the dining hall.

"Ha, my dear, it seems I've had a bit too much to drink," he began in a shallow tone. "Of course I recognize you from Nurse Bischoff's unit in Leuven—I was just trying to poke fun, eh?"

Nadia looked at him confusedly, mouth agape, unsure of what to say; she turned to Tom for some sort of explanation, and quickly found it as she examined his contorted facial features and the beads of sweat forming at his brow. _The Imperius Curse_.

"Bruder," she heard Tom say in a stern voice, "you'd better watch yourself, eh _mein freund_? I don't care how much you've had to drink, but you touch this fine, loyal nurse again and we'll _all _have something to say about it," his voice grew stronger as a chorus of young soldiers shouted in agreement. He eyed Nadia with difficulty, and motioned for her to leave the room.

"Yes, yes, I understand _Sturmmann_, I understand." He turned to the others in the room, sweeping his arms in explanation. "In any case, you won't have to worry about me harassing her again, because I actually much prefer being with men!"

At that last remark, Tom stifled a laugh and quickly left the room, accompanying Nadia in the hallway.

"We have to go," he said with a grin, grabbing her hand as he led her up the stairs.

"What? What are you smiling about?? What happened in there?"

"I'll tell you when we get safely out of the way—my guess is, there's about to be a public brawl downstairs and we'd do well not to witness it!"

She couldn't help but smile as they climbed the stairs to the quaint room on the second floor; she felt a surge of contentment as she realized how gently he was holding her hand, and how protectively his arm slipped around her waist as he led her inside.

"It's late," she remarked suddenly, pulling away from his light embrace. "I'm going to clean up and then we should head to bed—I mean, we've got a lot to do tomorrow if we want to find out what really happened in this town. What happened to them." She turned away before he could speak or even give her the knowing look that so thoroughly pierced her crumbling façade. Biting her lip, she spoke with her back toward him.

"You hesitated. In the dining room. You hesitated to help me."

There was a silent moment in which all one could hear were his barely even breaths and the grinding of her clenched teeth.

It seemed like hours before he spoke. "I feel like I'm fighting two demons in this place, Nadia. There are the men in black uniforms waiting to shoot me," he reached his arm to gently touch her shoulder, "and the man with a black soul trying to consume me from the inside out."

She sighed deeply and closed her eyes, speaking in a composed, even-tempered tone. "It's clear you're winning the battle with the former." She jerked her shoulder away from his hand, and briskly walked toward the small bathroom. "I'm not so sure about the latter."

The door clicked shut behind her.


	19. Chapter 19

Her thoughts seemed to be as scattered as the lukewarm droplets that pelted her bare skin; the truths she would discover come morning, the worn faces of the men she'd healed, the disappointed expression of Madame Fournier, the scar, the snow, the boy—no, the man—who couldn't decide whether he loved her or wanted her dead.

It was this thought that held her rapt for a moment, completely oblivious to the water and its gradual loss of heat. More often than not, he wore his mask: composed, condescending, quick-witted and suave; but this mask was not without its cracks. On occasion, particularly in her presence, he would show anger, cunning, ruthlessness; there was no falsity in his portrayal of the controlling student, the merciless soldier, the malicious lover…yet he also never pretended in those rare moments that he knew mattered. When she was truly vulnerable, truly hurt, he became unsure of himself, of how to act; but his eyes betrayed a hint of sincerity, a glimmer of concern.

There was something there, the shadow of a boy who had never been loved yet wished for a mother's embrace, the shell of a young man who had all the physical intimacy he could wish for but craved something more. She was drawn to this being that hid behind the multiple layers of Tom Riddle, drawn to the buds of feeling that had waited to blossom for eighteen relentless years. It didn't hurt, she realized quickly, that he was remarkably attractive.

He embraced features that she easily wrote off as sterile and unpleasant before she knew him, a refined look that only served to remind her of the straitlaced SS agents who tortured her in her youth. But these characteristics grew on her as she came to appreciate their unexpected partnership, as she came to see the rare glimpses of the humanity he still possessed. And in prior weeks, when they'd found themselves in positions of close physical contact, the heat that arose from their bodies was simply undeniable. _He's probably in the other room, _she mused, _removing his undershirt, readying for bed_…

Nadia was grateful for the surge of cold water that suddenly poured over her body, a sign that the shower had exceeded its appropriate wartime duration, and that her thoughts had exceeded the level of appropriateness a woman of her age should aspire to. She gingerly dried her hair and wrapped the cream-colored towel around her petite frame, breathing deeply before exiting the small bathroom.

* * *

One would be utterly misguided in assuming that Tom Marvolo Riddle had only thought of _fucking_ Miss Nadia Khalil at the moment one met them, precisely three months ago, bantering in the Potions classroom back at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. On the contrary, this thought had crossed his mind since the moment he met hertwo long years ago; back then, it could be characterized as the natural response Tom felt any time he saw a striking young woman. She was pretty enough, a bit different from his _preferred_ demographic—long-legged, blonde, pale—but there was something darkly inviting about her eyes, not to mention the fullness and sensuality exuded by certain…_other_…features.

And while the thought of her writhing beneath him had never quite left his mind, his reasons for imagining this scenario seemed to evolve over the years: first it was brute physical attraction, then an inexplicable desire to control, then wanting what he simply could not have—the list, one may imagine, goes on with reasons and rationalizations that even the great Sigmund Freud would be startled by.

Now, unexpectedly, the desire evolved into something else, something slightly less pathological, an unnamed beast whose component parts Mr. Riddle himself could not decipher. He sought comfort in her arms, and wanted to comfort her in his own; he wanted to give her pleasure and take pleasure in that gift; he wanted escape, from this bizarre world, and the world that preceded it, with its stifling emotions and expectations that ruled his every day life. He also, plainly, wanted to_ get off_.

How long had it been since his last sensual tryst with Elizabeth, or any of the other girls whose names always seemed to escape him? The pulsing of blood triggered by the sight of her flesh told him it had been long enough; indeed, he thought, how quickly the body reacts to the lurid stories the eye tells before the mind has a chance to speak. What would she feel like, he mused, what would she taste like…

Blood. He'd seen so much of it tonight, dancing around him in swirls of gunpowder and flying shrapnel; the musk of violence filled his nostrils, combining with the scent of the fragrant lavender soap she'd used to wash herself, her slender arms, her delicate neck, her lean legs and shaking thighs…

His breaths became heavy and quite audible as the thin string of Victorian self-restraint that held both of them apart snapped without the least bit of fanfare. He leapt from the edge of the bed, plunging to his knees as he tore the towel away and pulled her down to the ground beneath him. Several startled breaths seeped from her soft lips as they parted in shock; her almond brown eyes stared openly into his, as if to ask a question that neither of them would ever be able to answer.

_Can I trust you_

No, he thought, no, that wasn't the question, not quite—he continued to look at her, the shy wrinkles in her furrowed brow, the pale rouge color of her cheeks and lips, the long black eyelashes that framed those pleading golden eyes…

_Can I trust you with my heart?_

And with that, the ardent desire to dominate her, mind, body and soul, momentarily vanished; his lips lowered to hers in a sincere and gentle show of affection, of belonging. She felt strangely calmed by his unspoken answer, arching her back as she pressed against him, parting her lips to seek comfort in his own.

But the growth of desire that swelled in his loins stopped abruptly when he saw it, the long streak of discolored and uneven flesh that drew across her pelvis, an oddity on her perfect form, a scar on her blameless soul.

He swallowed, tracing his index finger along its jagged path, feeling her shake beneath his touch. "What did they do to you," he finally asked, his voice barely a whisper.

She candidly reached for the cream-colored towel, pulling it tightly against her body. She refused to look at him, but he could see the glistening of tears held beneath her heavy lids.

"Nadia, what did they do to you?" he repeated. "Answer me."

"There's no point in explaining it to you, Tom. You know the feeling. When you have to live inside your head…it was…it…what's done is done." She finally looked at him, without an ounce of acknowledgment for the thin stream of tears that fell down the gentle curve of her cheek. Her stare was solid, angry almost, at them, at him…

"I'm not like them." He answered her thoughts before she had a chance to speak. "I'm nothing like them." He wondered if repeating the words would make them true. "I'm nothing like them, Nadia."

She maintained a sense of severity in her countenance as she stared at him. "I saw the same look in your eyes, in your manner, from the first day I met you; in class, in the stairwell when you tore my nightgown, at the ball, in the library—even just an hour ago while that repulsive man was saying such awful things…it was like the world owed you something." She rose slowly from where she sat. "Like nothing would ever be enough for you." She held the towel securely against her frame, letting her words hang in the empty space between them. She waited against the wall for a moment, turning to look at him; she almost knew before she turned that he would no longer be meeting her gaze.

_Say something_, she secretly hoped. _Say something to prove me wrong, to show me that you're different, that you wouldn't hurt me, that you have regrets like everyone else…just…say something…_

As he heard her shut the bathroom door, Tom Riddle continued to stare fixedly at the peeling oak-leaf wallpaper that lined the small room. A life born from a loveless union, a boy shunned and taunted by the very population that now waged brutal war within its own ranks, a young man deprived of the language of feeling and emotion; _of course the world owes me something. It owes me everything for what it's taken._ He grew increasingly perturbed by her words, her implication that his desires were something to be ashamed of; how dare _she_, of all people, judge his choices? He abruptly rose from the floor and snatched his wand from the nightstand, pointing it directly at the worn brass doorknob that feebly guarded the bathroom and its lone occupant.

* * *

Her head tilted slightly as she stared into the mirror; she hesitated to look at her face, terrified of seeing the vacant expression in her eyes that returned every time she was reminded of those seven scarring days. It truly was a beautiful form that reflected back at her; slender and bronze, smooth and symmetrical in its exotic splendor. But that scar…

In prior years when she dared inspect her nude form (as girls her age so often do), she was reminded of a particular evening at her aunt's house in St. Hubert two years ago, when she descended the steps of the quaint cottage, wrapped in a towel, asking her mother what had happened to her.

"Is it a birthmark, mama? I don't remember seeing it before…"

Her mother's mouth opened slightly, and her eyes avoided those of her inquisitive daughter. "An accident, _fidwa_, an accident. You were helping Amm Majid brand his cattle, a few weeks ago—you know, on that small plot of land he's managed to hold onto in Provence. The iron slipped—it hurt you quite badly, so much so that you don't remember too much about it—you were unconscious for a while."

"Oh, yes…I suppose you've told me that before. I just can't seem to recall—"

"آفة العِلْم النسيان—'Forgetting is the plague of knowledge,' Nadia, it happens to all of us. And sometimes, it can also be a blessing."

Nadia felt a bizarre mixture of confusion and comfort in her mother's arms that night, unsure of her precise meaning but certain that regardless of the truth, she was loved, wholly and unconditionally. It was a soothing feeling that she longed to recall at this moment, but had barely a chance before the feeble bathroom door flew from its hinges with a terrifyingly loud sound.

"_Deprimo!_" he shouted, ignoring her shocked expression as he pointed his wand in accusation.

"I'm tired of your judgments, Nadia, your implications that you're so much better than I am—you should know how it feels," he seethed, "because the world stole from you too—and left a disgusting scar to remind you of it every day." He smiled at his insult, feeding off of the pain in her eyes, then gave a soft chuckle. "We're more alike than you thought, right? Oh no," he said condescendingly while lowering his wand, "one must not forget that there is one important distinction. You see, _unlike me_, you're just too weak to seize back what they've taken, what's rightfully yours. Weak," he repeated, "and _pathetic_."

Her brow furrowed in resentment as she pulled her arms guardedly across her naked breasts. "It's not _weakness_," she said through clenched teeth, "it's just an unwillingness to harm others, Tom, which is nothing to be ashamed—"

"_Unwillingness to harm others_?" he repeated mockingly. "Oh get serious, you sound absolutely _pitiful_. Your supposed 'moral code' is just to mask your weakness, something to hide your fear of _living _and _doing_ what you're entitled to. Well I've got news for you, _darling_…" he said, inching toward her shivering form, "I'm not afraid of getting what I _want_."

He grabbed her by the shoulders and flung her to the tiled floor with no regard for the excessive force he used; she squirmed in discomfort as he lowered himself on top of her, pinning her arms down with one hand and unbuttoning his pants with the other.

"Tom stop!—what are you—"

"_Silencio_!" he growled, a broad smile spreading across his face as he saw her eyes widen in horror. His pants and briefs fell easily from his form with the help of a silent incantation, and he now poised himself above her, relishing in that moment of dominance, seeing her shake like an animal that knew its time had come. "How long I've waited for this," he mused, leaning against her with every inch of his body; he licked his lips in an appallingly snake-like manner before pressing them against hers, biting, tearing, _hungering_.

When he moved onto her neck, she gasped for breath, trying to speak words that could not be heard. Her arms ached from their immobile position, and her lips grew sore from his violent kisses, if one could even call them that; she felt him erect against her and shuddered—it was the most real reenactment of her capture that she could've ever imagined, pressed against the cold, hard floor, naked and helpless in the face of her sadistic captor, writhing in futility beneath his overpowering form. How could she have trusted him? She chastised herself for taking such a risk, for thinking in those brief moments that he had changed from the emotionless, vicious monster he'd always been to someone she could conceivably grow fond of. She breathed out suddenly as he caressed her breasts, licking and nipping them with vehement obsession; though her arms were still pinned above her, his other hand had taken to exploring the lower parts of her body, and she jerked her limbs in silent protest. This couldn't be real, this couldn't be happening, she told herself repeatedly; he cannot be this twisted, not after everything we've gone through…

"Stop moving!" he roared, momentarily meeting her frightened eyes as he propped himself up above her. "Just give in, Nadia, it'll be much more pleasurable for the both of us." As she could say nothing in response, she just stared at him while a small stream of tears crept down the curve of her flushed cheeks. She continued to struggle in a series of disjointed movements as he held her down, and a wry smile crossed his face as he realized that she was literally _writhing _beneath him; it was exactly as he'd imagined it, except…

_It's not quite how you imagined it, is it Tom?_

The smile immediately vanished from his lips. He couldn't bear to look at her at that moment, and released her hands as well as her voice as he stood up. He tossed a towel down to her and similarly covered himself with one, still unable to face her. _No_, he thought, _it's not how I imagined it at all._

"I saw the slightest quiver in your lip just then, when you were on top of me," she spoke softly, but with a tone that resounded with gravity rather than innocence. "It's one thing to force _me_ to fuck you, Tom, but it's quite another to force _yourself_."

She caught his reflection in the mirror and raised her voice, finding strength in his unwillingness to face her. "You pretended like _raping me_ was something you actually wanted to do, and I almost believed you. I was terrified that this could've been happening to me _again_. But you're just not that person anymore, are you?"

"I don't know what you expect me to say," he remarked coldly.

"That you'll _figure it out_, Tom, that you'll accept who you're becoming and let go of that monster from the past! That's what I want you to say! That's what I've been waiting for you to say for a long time now!" She was angry at him for making her re-live such an unfortunate memory, for continuing to lie to himself when he knew better. "For heaven's sake Tom, _find yourself._ I mean, is the truth about who you are now so horrifying that you'd rather continue to _rape _and _kill_ than acknowledge it?"

He turned suddenly to her, a defiant look reflecting in his dark green eyes. "Don't act like you know me—"

"Don't act like you know yourself either. Because if anything, this night proved that you _don't_." She held her gaze angrily, then boldly stepped over the broken door and slipped on her nightgown before climbing into the queen-sized bed. Nadia considered herself to be a strong woman given the trauma she'd endured in her brief lifetime, but this night's events tore at her heart with a ferociousness that she'd never felt before. She pulled the thick cotton covers far over her face so that he wouldn't be able to see her tears, or hear her stifled breaths.

Sometime later, a time Nadia could not guess for minutes become so subjective when one sleeps, Tom lowered himself into the bed, taking care not to disturb the bundle of covers she had seemingly claimed. And so they slept, he on the left, she on the right, and a chasm of regret squarely in between.


	20. Chapter 20

The morning light illuminated an otherworldly scene in room 204 of _Le Domaine_ , a cottage-like inn that resided inconspicuously amidst the dense Ardennes forest. Like the centuries-old oaks that stood unwavering outside their window, the two youths were eerily still in their slumber; he lay on his back, with one arm motionless at his side and the other draped lightly across the young woman's shoulders. She rested on her side, facing him, with an arm crooked slightly against his chest and a leg entwined carefully between his.

One could only describe the scene as unusual because of the sheer _improbability_ of the seemingly affectionate embrace; mere hours ago he had hurt her as no one had before, and she had torn at a guilt-ridden heart that he hardly knew he possessed.

Thus it was a transient state that existed in sleep only, a dream more than anything, for where else could the troubled pasts of these young adults be laid to rest in a calm, tender hold? Where else could their sorrows be forgotten, their ambitions softened, their love for each other realized? Only in the elusive world of dreams.

* * *

Major Aleksandar Kirsch had the countenance of a granite wall, stoic and strong in its impeccably angled glory. As his dark eyes scanned the sorrowful figures laboring in the mire of Jasenovac, his chest swelled with immense pride; this was _his _success, _his _camp, which he'd run so smoothly and so efficiently so as to receive accolades from Der Führer himself not two short months ago.

His aquiline nose nearly brushed against the wooden windowpane as he stared at those beneath him—beneath him in more ways than one, he thought cleverly—and his thin lips twisted into a mischievous smile as he realized that his expansive wealth and sterling reputation were acquired by the mere age of thirty-two. But then again, he thought, was that really so surprising?

Aleksandar had the peculiar feeling that everything that had come before his life in the elite Croatian Schutzstaffel was meaningless, forgettable even; he had never felt himself to be a part of the world that existed before National Socialism, as he was estranged from friends, callous to lovers, even distant from family. But with the start of the Third Reich, it was as if every quality he embraced perfectly aligned with their own goals for society—his brilliance, his organization, his love of power and hatred of others—he was a king among men in this new age, a prophet among eager spirits.

His thoughts were briefly interrupted by a slight knock at the door of his office; he straightened his the breast of his black uniform and answered in a confident tone.

"Yes?"

The door creaked open as Emily, his loyal and modestly pretty young secretary stepped inside, with two sheets of paper delicately cradled to her chest.

"M-Major Kirsch, sir, a telegram for you—er, orders, rather—from Oberstleutnant Meier, sir." She spoke hesitantly, and he laughed inwardly at how, after nearly two years of traveling and working for his unit, she was still so noticeably scared of him. _As she should be, _he thought, a satisfying smile nearly gracing his lips.

She was so uncomfortable in his presence that her small, pale hands began to perceptibly shake as they struggled to hold the papers; she didn't know whether to place them on his desk or wait until he _told _her to place them on his desk, or in his hands, or not to set them down at all. The shaking increased as she struggled to hold his gaze, unsure of what he would say or do; in her years of service, she had seen him casually shoot a man in the knees for standing in misalignment with his unit, and throw a scalding soup in his server's face for failing to warn him of the temperature. And these were only the actions she'd witnessed toward his _own_ subordinates, to say nothing of what he did to the Jewish victims that now labored under his command.

"On my desk, Emily."

She breathed outward in relief and lowered her eyes to the floor as she walked to the large oak table in front of him. But upon reaching forward to set down the papers, he grabbed her wrist suddenly and pulled it toward him, so much so that the young girl's hips grated painfully against the side of the desk. She gasped in shock and stared at him with fearful wide blue eyes that blinked repeatedly, desperately searching for some explanation.

He looked at her sternly, and calmly, as if there was nothing surprising at all in his sudden, severe grasp of her frail wrist; a tight-lipped smiled came to his face, and Emily hated herself for admiring how handsome he was at such a time. His dark blonde hair had hues of gold that highlighted the amber flecks in his deep brown eyes, and his firmly sculpted cheekbones seemed to be the stuff of myths, reminiscent of the god Apollo or the infinitely more human Adonis. The power he held in this single gaze made her shudder with trepidation and indiscernible, twisted admiration.

"There seems to be a stack of documents precisely where you intend to place the papers, Emily. Please take care to _separate_ them from the rest." He released her wrist suddenly, and quickly turned his attention to the orders that his Senior Storm Unit Leader sought to deliver to him. "You may go now."

Emily Straube left the room as quietly as possible, collapsing into her chair like a marionette whose strings had just been cut.

* * *

Tom's tranquil sleep in no way betrayed the tumultuous thoughts that danced in his mind that night and morning; one scene featured himself and Nadia twisted in a sheet of clouds, kissing and devouring each other with the voracity of young lovers, naked in the mist but impenetrable to its cold moisture. And just as soon as the dream had come, it disappeared, swallowed by a relentless nightmare.

She had fallen. She slipped from his arms and fell to the Earth, and then beyond the Earth, into a dark, volcanic landscape. He saw her body from afar, like a child watching his favorite doll fall from the top of a skyscraper, and clutched his chest in pain when she became a mere red speck on the surface of black ash and ruby fire. _How had she fallen_, he demanded of himself, _what did you do to her? Did you let go of her? Did she let go of you?_

A sweat broke across his otherwise serene face, and Tom awoke to find her calming presence beside him; the cool touch of her skin against his balmy flesh was strangely comforting. She slept facing him, so he too turned to face her, and was overcome with a desire to hold her as he held her in his dreams, in the clouds above the meaningless world beneath. He wouldn't let go this time.

Rays of sunlight caught in the hazel hue of her eyes as she opened them, awakened by his unexpected embrace.

"Tom..." she breathed in, her languid limbs resting against his. She blinked twice, realizing suddenly that their forms were entwined; she made the slightest effort to pull away from him, as last night she'd vowed to let go, to expel him completely from her body and her mind; but the stubborn, willful heart…he would not allow her to escape his sturdy arms.

"I…I can't…" she pleaded, closing her eyes as a look of worry crossed her face.

"Nadia…Nadia, look at me…look at me, please…" he spoke softly as he raised a hand to her chin, tilting her face toward his; her eyes remained closed. "It's never been harder for me to talk to you than it is right now, at this moment," he sighed, looking past her to the window beyond their bed. "I feel more exposed now than I ever have before, Nadia…I see myself so clearly in this light, in this place, in this bed, with you. I've done things that…seemed so right at the time, things that were swayed by anger, resentment and lust for power, my constant companions in this world. I never doubted my choices, and I felt not an ounce of regret for these actions." He returned his gaze to her reluctant expression. "Until now."

A wetness seeped from her tightly shut lids, and her mouth tensed as if to prevent a breath of relief, and regret.

"I've killed—"

"No Tom—" she opened her eyes abruptly, beseeching him to say no more as she brought a finger to his lips.

"—my father, and his parents."

"N-no," she sobbed, tears pooling on the soft cotton pillow beneath her face. Her fingers now clasped her features, hiding her from his sorrowful expression, and she continued to weep behind this cage of flesh until he spoke again.

"Nadia, please…please…forgive me," he whispered, "forgive me, I cannot lose you," he brought her closer to him, and kissed her hands, slowly pulling each one away from her tear-streaked face. "I cannot lose you," he repeated, meeting her eyes and staring at his reflection in the glassy pools of golden brown before him. He barely recognized the face that peered back at him—a man who looked pained, tired, worried…sincere.

And then he brought his mouth to hers, in a slow, meaningful kiss; he could sense her hesitancy—the reluctance to touch him, to open her lips for him—but it faded as the tension dissipated from her weary bones. He deepened the kiss, and propped himself above her, decidedly aware of the thin white sheet that separated their bodies; he was in the cloud again, and she would not fall from his grasp.

Nadia felt her mind racing as he positioned himself on top of her, the memory of the night before unsettling her conscience—added to the memories of _other_ sadistic men in that very position above her tear-streaked face, which, needless to say, amplified her distress. Yet the temptation to release her thoughts and fears was overwhelming as his hands caressed her body over the thin cotton sheets; he brushed the fabric against her legs as he lay between them, past her thighs, savoring the curves of her hips, and finding respite at her soft breasts. He rubbed them lightly, tracing swirls around her taut nipples and flicking his tongue ever so gently against them; she couldn't help but release the breath that remained in her throat, simultaneously relaxing the muscles that held her body in stiff captivity. She couldn't recall the moment the sheet disappeared from between them, and every square inch of her flesh was subsequently released, free to press against the hard body that lay on top of her and savor its eroticism. His erection brushed back and forth teasingly against the moisture between her legs, and his lips remained affixed to her neck and collarbone, obsessively kissing and sucking, licking and nipping, causing a fluttering sensation of pleasure to ripple throughout her body.

But she could not be taken. Not like this. Not _beneath _him_._

"You murdered your father!" she screamed suddenly, her eyes wide with vigor. "You murdered your own _family_!" She grabbed either side of his ribcage and pushed him off of her with an uncanny strength; Tom landed at the edge of the bed, face-up, but had not a chance to prop himself up before she leapt on top of him and pinned his arms at his sides. She read the look of shock on his face, and without a moment's hesitation slapped him squarely across the jaw.

"Don't you dare look surprised," she growled, "that I wouldn't let you take me so easily, lying down like a helpless ragdoll beneath you." She grabbed his erect member and tentatively positioned it between her legs, while lowering her face to his to emphasize her words: "Your moral debt to society is _immense_, Tom Marvolo Riddle. And for that reason, I will _always_…" she said in a sultry whisper, suddenly plunging himself inside of her, "be _above you_."

Tom gasped audibly, completely thrown off by the sadistic turn of events; she was now swirling her hips back and forth while he was fully inside of her, and the pleasure of her hot, wet flesh combined with the sting of her brutal slap left him in utter emotional disarray. Her ample breasts bounced up and down with her every movement, providing excessive visual stimulation when added to the sight of his throbbing cock plunging slowly in and out of her; he wanted—no, he needed—to grab her by those slender hips, throw her down, press her face into a pillow as he fucked her ruthlessly from behind—

"Don't even think about it," she growled, digging her nails into his skin as she dragged them across his chest. He immediately screamed in pain, clenching his teeth as blood began to trickle down his abdomen; but his tooth-bearing grimace twisted into a most wicked smile as he grabbed the back of her thighs and suddenly pulled upward. Nadia gasped and reflexively placed her arms behind her to prevent her back from crashing into the bed frame; Tom was now at a noticeable advantage, holding a leg in each hand, digging his nails into her thighs as he rapidly thrust in and out of her without a shred of concern for her discomfort. He grunted with every movement, dragging her closer and thus plunging in deeper with each successive thrust, until he felt her thighs press firmly against his waist and throw off his center of balance—he toppled to the side, still inside of her, but once again beneath her. The pace of her up-and-down movements increased, soft moans emitting from her throat as she played with her breasts, a display that made Tom feel more like an accessory to her erotic fantasy than a principal player; he propped himself up and buried his face in her chest, flicking his tongue against her nipples and using his free hand to deliver a forceful slap to her buttocks. She breathed in sharply from the pain, and used her hands to now bring his face toward her own; her lips smashed against his in an overwhelming kiss, her tongue flicking about teasingly while her fingers interlocked with loose strands of his hair; and with every piece of himself pressed against her, with each finally playing equal parts in their collective pleasure, they were brought to climax with audible moans, and both were left panting among the wreckage of sheets and pillows.

Tom, now lying on his back with a dizzying sensation numbing his mind, turned to Nadia with a set of tired looking eyes and a slight smile on his face.

"Encore?"

* * *

"No." He said it sternly, in a tone that simply did not allow for any degree of disagreement. "This cannot be a brute force operation—not the sort of _blitzkrieg _that they've used before. Our target is much more elusive this time." Major Kirsch quieted the room of six captains with a chilling glare, then promptly turned his back to the men and began to pace, a mannerism he had adopted to ensure that his audience truly _felt_ his presence. "These wizards can play tricks on your mind, by disguising themselves or hiding themselves in plain view; he will find you easily because of your uniforms, but there is a very slim chance of your being able to identify him. For that reason, only Horvát's and Krüger's units will be in uniform, one British and one German; the rest of your men will be in plain clothes, accompanied by a plain clothes nursing unit, at your designated hideouts in the surrounding towns of Nassogne, Tenneville, Libramont, Libin, Rochefort and St. Hubert."

He paused, taking a deep, calm breath, and turned to face the men once again. "Our culprit—herein known as codename _schwarzer wolf_—will not have traveled past these boundary towns without stopping to eat or drink; find where he has been. Either through force or deceit, find out where he is, what he is planning, with whom he is staying. And _trust no one_. You cannot trust your eyes when you search in the land of the mystical."

He raised six immaculately organized file folders from his desk, and handed them to their respective recipients. The captains scanned over plans that detailed every aspect of their highly classified mission, ranging from what condition the prisoner is to be in when captured ("subdued either by chemical injection or physical force, though his heart rate should not drop below 30 bpm") to the most appropriate type of clothing for conditions in the Belgian villages ("for military units: cold weather field boots with black felt leggings…").

As the men began to file out of the room, they were interrupted by one final, abrupt comment by their commander:

"It nearly slipped my mind because of the improbability of such an event—you all should be aware, however, that this man we are searching for…this wizard…may not be a man after all. We could be dealing with no less than a _witch_."

* * *

A/N: My sincerest apologies, dear readers, for the delay in updating. In any case, I'm pleased to introduce a new character who will play quite a role in the fates of our two conflicted lovers.

And to the faithful readers who've stuck with me since the beginning (you know who you are!), and those who've recently stumbled upon this obscure work—thanks so much for your time and comments, they are the only things that keep me writing on a consistent basis!

As a sort of thank you for your patience, I drew the characters of Tom and Nadia (comic-book style, just for kicks) and posted them online-- check out the site in my profile, if you're interested :)


	21. Chapter 21

Nadia harbored fears of confronting the townspeople of St. Hubert in an effort to discover where her parents had been taken—or buried.

It was no secret that, depending on where troops were stationed, many German soldiers and officers would take up residence with the inhabitants of a village or town; they paid handsomely and mostly kept to themselves, but were also—by virtue of this residence—acutely aware of the goings-on around town.

It was also no secret that many of the residents—mostly women, due to wartime demand for their male companions—had illicit relations with these soldiers, either out of fear for their lives or hope for a better future should Germany emerge the victor.

Fortunately for Nadia, at this point in time, the twenty-fourth of December, 1944, the novelty of the German occupation had worn off for many of St. Hubert's citizens. Food was no longer abundant, and the villagers grew resentful of the larger portions awarded to their unwelcome occupants; news—half-truth, half-myth—of the magnitude and resolve of the American offensive had found its way to even the most remote areas of France; and the German soldiers, though still classically handsome in many respects, had grown weary and tired, soiled by the harshness of the terrain and spiritually damaged by the increasingly likely prospect of surrender.

Nadia knew that many of the townspeople, now mostly convinced of an Allied victory, would be sympathetic to her seemingly unobtrusive cause; she quickly realized, however, that her ethnically dark appearance and Tom's marked male physique would be a problem should they be seen by any of the troops stationed in the town.

"It would only be for an hour, maximum—seriously, you can't expect to go around town as a healthy young man and not be suspected or caught for something." Her wand was raised, pointing slightly at the bare-chested figure in front of her. She immediately saw a look of defiance cross his face, and he raised his own wand somewhat defensively.

"I'm not going out there as a woman."

"Only an hour."

"I'll go as a soldier then—they wouldn't be able to tell."

"Then the villagers won't speak to you—or me for that matter."

"Disillusionment charm."

"I don't need anyone bumping into you in close quarters. Some of these people are living in their basements."

"Then I'll just—"

"—dress as a woman, fix your hair like a woman, wrap a scarf around your neck and put on some cosmetics. That we're even having this argument is ludicrous, Tom, let's just do what needs to be done." She scowled at him. "Suck it up."

He groaned audibly, making his dissatisfaction abundantly clear before holding up his soldier's clothing for transfiguration. Nadia quickly settled on the color and style of his winter garments: a heavy wool, navy blue, double-breasted pea-coat, a dark brown wool skirt that touched below the knees, faux-nylon stockings—as she knew real nylon was scarce during times of war—a thick cotton patterned scarf and modest leather shoes.

"Localize a warming spell underneath your jacket, since no amount of women's clothing will be enough for the cold, and I don't want excess bulk to give away your true physique." Before he could protest further, she quickly transfigured his short dark hair into a long, dark-brown mane with an auburn hue; she giggled shamelessly, and continued to style the hair, pulling it tightly into a French twist and adding a navy blue beret with two cotton puffs for a decorative touch.

"Very sexy Tom—I never realized what a good looking woman you are," she said as she applied rouge, lipstick and mascara to his reluctant features. "Shame I can't say the same for your male counterpart," she teased.

"Careful Nadia, you could be caught then for making love to a woman—I hear they punish harshly for that in Hitler's regime…" He cursed himself for not catching the utterance of that…word…

His slip of the tongue did not escape her. The look on her face simultaneously expressed a blend of shock and satisfaction as she turned to look at him. "Making…_love_, Tom?" The pitch of her voice rose as she spoke the word.

He said nothing, but stared at her slyly.

"I suppose that means you…_love me_, Tom?"

He turned around to face the mirror, smiling at her reflection despite his own amusing appearance. "You always did have a tendency to read too much into things." He could almost feel her disappointment, and he most certainly saw it clinging to the contours of her pursed lips. "Change your appearance; I'll pack our things and wait downstairs."

* * *

From afar, Nadia Khalil looked as Aryan as Miss Eva Braun herself; upon closer inspection, however, one could see that her beauty was too unwonted to be real. The color of her hair assumed a honey-brown hue with strands of blonde tangled in its curled locks; her eyebrows matched the brown perfectly, but her black eyelashes and light eyes had been left alone. With such light features juxtaposed with her dark, untouched skin, she looked like no other woman in Europe, carrying a complexion of gold, bronze and black with a regal air, like a goddess of the Amazon.

It was fortunate, Tom thought, that she cared to thoroughly cover her striking appearance; she wore a plain grey scarf over her hair that tied just below her chin, and he could see that though her dress was a flattering shade of ochre, she hid it with a dull, iron-colored wool coat.

"Good thing we got out early; I saw some of the Gestapo in the dining room for breakfast." It was a way of making conversation, but as the feminine-looking Tom stared back at her in resentful silence, she casually took his arm and led him to the side of the road. "Remember, we must speak French from this point on—let's rid of the German language charm now, before we're forced to speak to anyone."

Tom cast a disillusionment charm so that they may be spared conversation with the soldiers and S.S. officers passing by; Nadia ignored them anyway and boldly traversed the path ahead, as if she knew by heart every twist and turn of the cold cobblestone road beneath them.

After twenty minutes of marching through the snow, which easily crept through the thin leather of their shoes, Tom ventured to ask her the question he hadn't thought to before. "Where exactly are we going?"

"My aunt's house; she's the only one I'd trust to tell me the truth about what happened to those seized two weeks ago. She won't ask for bribes or sell me to the Gestapo, like most of the residents here did after Germany's military successes." Her indignant tone dripped with bitterness and rage as she spoke, until Tom warned her that she could easily be overheard in such quiet surroundings. "They're all scum, for what they did—those who invaded and those who refused to fight, to speak up."

"Maybe they were just scared. They did the only thing they could to survive."

She turned suddenly to him, angered at his attempt to defend those she'd taught herself to loathe. "If your survival depends on hurting, killing, betraying and degrading others, then you do not survive. You live the rest of your life like a coward, resting at the Devil's side."

He smiled at the emotion he saw in her sparkling eyes, and decided to push further. "And what if you must do those things to maintain power? To ensure that your way of life continues? That you and your contribution to the world are not erased by the sands of time?"

"Fear of death, then. It motivates megalomaniacs and cowards alike. We must come to terms with our limitations, with the lives we have and the time we have to live them."

"Then why are you so upset about the death of your parents?"

He felt the sting of her slap almost immediately; it was expected, he thought quickly, but it was still the second time she'd slapped him in less than twelve hours. "You're a contradiction, darling," he spoke to her back as she marched forward. "You want to live a just life even if the consequence is death, but you do not want yourself or those you love to die. How then, can you live a just life in this cruel world?" She said nothing, and all that could be heard was the quiet crunch of snow beneath her shoes. "I faced that question long ago, Nadia, and the only answer is to elude death at all costs."

* * *

Aleksandar Kirsch arrived in St. Hubert in a small, nondescript Renault along with two plain-clothes officers. Krüger's German battalion was to join them in an hour, but only after Kirsch had the chance to inspect the town as cautiously as possible, without drawing any attention to his task.

He was thoroughly underwhelmed by the seemingly uninhabited village; _Le Domaine_, a sight that greeted first-time visitors to St. Hubert, was drab in its coloring and unsophisticated in its architecture, a far cry from the majestic castles in Croatia or the elegant buildings of Vienna. Hating this petty town would make it easier to torture its uncultured residents, the men and women who carelessly approved such unsightly designs and even then, failed to maintain the cleanliness of the buildings' exteriors.

He took a deep breath of cold winter air, and grimaced as if it were painful to inhale the atmosphere that gave life to such lowly surroundings. Spotting a farm in the distance, he silently motioned to the foot soldiers with his hands, a complicated flurry of movements that told them to set up base—complete with places to sit, an area to arrange the radio transmitter, basic defenses—and the time he would be joining them. As they proceeded down the snow-laden road, Aleksandar turned to _Le Domaine_, intent on questioning those in charge of operating the diminutive, pathetic inn. He had no doubt that _schwarzer wolf_—the elusive perpetrator of the atrocities in Antwerp—would have been drawn in by the warm glow of domesticity that shone through its small windows.

* * *

Nadia and Tom approached the two-storied domicile in silence. They walked through the small courtyard, an area Nadia remembered being so much larger and greener in her past; now it seemed like a sad sight, its color blanched by snow and its small marble statues disfigured by time and neglect. The color of the house, previously a provincial pink and yellow, evolved into something dull and pale, like an overly washed garment; most homes could no longer afford the upkeep necessary to maintain pristine appearances.

She stopped a foot short of the wooden door, and slighted her head at Tom. "Do the one thing you're good at and try to look silent and brooding. I'll do the talking." He had no time for a clever retort before she knocked.

They knew they were in enemy territory, but were hardly prepared for the sight before them: a soldier answered the door to her aunt's own home, and they could see quickly that he was not alone. Greeted by such unusually attractive women, the young soldier could not help but look well meaning; he had not yet shaved, but Nadia could detect a faint smile forming beneath his auburn stubble.

"_Guten morgen!_" he said in an overly enthused tone; he quickly switched to French, which he spoke with surprising proficiency. "What brings you to this home?"

Nadia wore a shy smile, aware of how intensely he was staring at her. "Does _Herr Za'irpur_ still live here?" Her voice was pleasant, and the other soldier made no haste in coming to the door upon hearing its feminine tone. He was a bit older, undoubtedly of a higher rank, and also seemed to take interest in the ladies' curious appearance.

"She does, she's just upstairs doing some cleaning. Who shall I say waits to see her?"

"A niece—er, some nieces—we live in Vesqueville down the way, but the situation there—in terms of food—has become…difficult." She brought her eyes to his, and spoke more assertively. "Our grain has been taken, our animals dead, and we barely have any coffee; we wanted to borrow enough just to get us through the winter." She lowered her eyelids dramatically, and opened them again to meet his gaze. "My mother sent us to see if Madame Za'ipur could help us with this matter. She's been very gracious in the past, and I know she will be eager to see us."

"Of course she will," the soldier smiled, and invited them inside. "We have a pot of coffee brewing right now, in fact—_Schultz_!" he sputtered in German, commanding his companion to pour two cups. "She'll be right down."

Nadia's heart was boring a hole in her chest; being surrounded by German soldiers and anticipating the sight of her aunt easily overwhelmed her body with adrenaline. Tom seemed infinitely calmer, and took his place at the kitchen table without any fuss, though his unfamiliarity with women's clothing caused him to sit rather awkwardly.

As they waited, the soldiers exchanged pleasantries with both Nadia and Tom, then placed the mugs of coffee before them.

"I'll have two spoons of sugar in mine," Tom said in an airily feminine tone.

Nadia shot him a wide-eyed look, as did the soldiers in the room. He could see her teeth were clenched. He had no conception of what brought on this reaction, as he didn't think his voice to be obviously male; he returned her stare with a look of confusion.

"My sister," she said suddenly, turning to the men with a casual air, "is quite the joker. Sugar? In a time of war?" she laughed forcefully, wearing an obscenely large grin. "The last time I must've had sugar was nineteen-forty-one!" The older officer began to laugh in agreement, and soon after the soldiers eased back into conversation with their guests.

For a moment, Nadia sat breathless as she heard someone descend the steps; immediately upon seeing the vague outline of a woman's form she leapt from the chair and embraced her aunt.

"_It's me!" _she whispered in Arabic, barely catching her breath. "_A friend and I are acting like your nieces, pretending that we came to borrow some food—but you know why I came, fidwa, you know why I came._" She let go of her aunt long enough for them to look at each other, and tears immediately filled both of their eyes.

"My darlings," her aunt whispered in French, "my darlings have come to see me!" Though difficult to take her eyes off of Nadia, she turned to Tom and greeted him with a pleasant smile. "Come hug me, my darling!"

Tom rose, imitating the excitement of Nadia as he hugged her aunt. "We came to borrow some goods, but of course we'd love to hear how you've been doing," he said as sweetly as he could. He turned to the soldiers and opened his arms gratefully: "Though we do surely enjoy your company, would you boys mind terribly if we had a lone moment to speak to our dear auntie? We promise not to take very long. It's just been a while since we saw her last."

The officer waved pleasantly and motioned for his men to follow him upstairs. Nadia breathed a sigh of relief, and sat at the table, still clutching her aunt's hand. "This place looks barren! Did they steal things from you _nanna_?"

She laughed, and Nadia could see traces of lines and wrinkles that etched themselves into her previously flawless olive skin. "Steal? I never gave them the chance! I've hidden everything in the basement, and they don't even know I have one!" She pulled down her hair from its tight bun, a dark mane with streaks of white, and playfully cupped her niece's face. "Where have you been, my _zuhra? _What have you seen and done? And who is this woman you've brought with you?"

Nadia smiled and explained hers and Tom's situation; how they found out, how they came across to Europe, how they were nearly caught at _Le Domaine_; and in turn, Nadia's aunt elucidated the happenings in St. Hubert over the last two years; how Am Majid was faring in the war ("fighting in the Resistance, blowing up their communications towers, those rotten pigs!"), how her children were doing in North Africa ("stationed there 'till the end of the war, it's a secure territory now") and the events leading up to her parents' "removal."

"But where have they taken them?" she asked eagerly. "To a camp? Onboard a train of some sort?"

Her aunt sighed heavily. "We don't know for sure. Your uncle and I were away when they came; all we saw was a battalion leaving St. Hubert by the main road, with prisoners—some Americans, some British—I don't know if they had those captured in the village. They looked like they were traveling west."

"How far could they have gotten by this point? It's only been a week, we can find them and—"

"Nadia, stop!" her aunt frowned at her sternly. "What, you are speaking of following them? A lamb to slaughter! You cannot go, you will stay with me—please _fidwa_, I lost two already, I don't know when my children will be coming home from the war, I cannot lose another…"

Nadia protested as gently as she could, and Tom watched the exchange with intrigue. He'd never seen this kind of compassion from an adult—at least, he'd certainly never been on the receiving end of it. The two women looked so similar, both with a sparkle of sincerity in their deep brown eyes, both gesturing with kindness and speaking in an affectionate vernacular. Unbeknownst to them, he removed the cosmetic charms Nadia had placed on him and resumed wearing a German officer's uniform, black with an ivory leaf indicating the rank of colonel. He finally spoke, almost a whisper to ensure the men upstairs didn't hear a male voice resounding below.

"She's right. You'll stay here, with her." Her aunt gave him a startled glance, unsure of how a German officer came to appear in her kitchen. Before she could express her dismay, Nadia quickly explained the illusion of gender—and uniform.

"Don't be ridiculous Tom—I risked my life to get this far, and I know we're close." She stood with her palms still resting on the table, as if threatening to leave.

"You heard what your aunt said about what's been going on in this village lately—the people of St. Hubert are on the front lines of the _Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein_. Troops are moving in and out every day, and officers are residing in the homes; the Germans are already stalled at the Meuse River, and if the Allies push further east, this town will be the first to be hit. I…I don't want you to get caught." He paused, and lowered his eyes. "Again."

Nadia swallowed, the pain of her memory in captivity creeping back from the depths of her mind. "I'm stronger now," was all she said. She leaned over to kiss her aunt's tear-stained cheek, and quietly made her way to the door.

"Don't do this." He commanded rather than pleaded, but the sound of someone descending the stairs cut his efforts short. He nodded gratefully at Nadia's aunt and pushed through the door, grabbing Nadia's hand behind him. They quickly rounded the side of the house, and began to descend into the thick forest that surrounded the small town.

"This parallels the main road, as long as we can keep our directions straight—it'll be far less conspicuous." He was clutching her hand rather than holding it, but eased his grip once he sensed her discomfort.

"Maybe you're right," she started after a few minutes of walking. "My aunt barely gave us any information as to where we should look. All we know is 'go west'—there's a whole world west of here!" Her tone betrayed a sense of frustration. "They could be anywhere by now."

"Quiet!" he whispered harshly. Nadia scowled at his remark but implicitly understood as she heard the crunching of boots in snow mere meters away.

"Shit."

The cryptically twisted branches of spruce, oak and birch trees provided dense shelter from the sky, but at mid-day it was hardly enough to stave off all light that descended from the clouds; Tom and Nadia—as well as their footprints—would be very conspicuous to any who cared to inspect the area.

She looked at him worriedly: she knew a disillusionment charm was not enough to hide all the signs of their presence in the forest. While expecting to see the same look of concern on his face, Nadia was surprised to find a sly smile. He closed his lean arms around her hips and pushed her up against the trunk of a sturdy oak; he didn't hesitate to lower his lips to hers and kiss her tenderly. He could feel the tension in her lips, the uncertainty, and he relished the sense of control he had in that moment; Nadia, who was always two steps ahead, was at his mercy now.

"_Soldat_!" he heard a man yell, and both turned to stare down the barrel of an MP40 automatic rifle.

"Calm yourself," Tom began in impeccable German. He inspected the soldier quickly, and was relieved that he was just that—a soldier. "I'm Colonel Kessler, commanding in _Heeresgruppe G_. As you can see, I was seeking a little privacy with my French acquaintance…"

The soldier lowered his gun and shifted his eyes to Nadia. He had a roundish face, stained by dirt and sallow from poor nutrition, but managed to wear a pleasant expression upon seeing her glowing features.

"We can't be seen together in her aunt's house, nor in the village. They'd hang her if they saw her with a German officer. You know how these small-minded peasants think." He slipped his arm around her waist, pulling her affectionately toward him. "They'll be conducting field exercises in twenty minutes, I believe. I'll join up in _centre-ville_ at that time; but until then, can we keep this between us?"

The soldier nodded. "You may want to come quicker than that though—Zedler says they'll be sending panzers through the main road quite soon. Some secret operation sanctioned by headquarters."

"Will do. _Auf wiedersehen, soldat._" He turned back to Nadia, who was resting snugly in his arms and wore a growing smile.

"Brilliant," she said.

"I think that's the first compliment you've paid me thus far. And I'm not even done impressing you."

Her mouth opened slightly, as if prompting him to say more; but while engaged in his gaze, she heard a faint groan, and turned to see the round-faced soldier collapse to his knees, holding his head in agony.

"Tom! What are you—"

"Finding out where they took your parents." His eyes closed, and she now observed the soldier crippled on his side, shaking violently with pain. She winced; having been on the receiving end of Tom's legilimency skills, she knew precisely what the untrained mind would feel at this moment. But in traversing the moral landscape, she felt little remorse for this man, who'd dedicated his life to a senseless cause, who'd brought fear and death and sorrow to mere civilians. She aimed her wand carefully and muttered _Silencio_ to prevent him from drawing attention to the scene.

"He's from Frankfurt. Twenty-six years old. He has a wife; she's pregnant. He's been stationed here for three weeks; he was part of the sweep-through in St. Hubert and St. Vith, but he did not follow with the prisoners—the Gestapo took them after the soldiers helped round them up. They said they were going…going to a field between Arville and Lorcy…they…"

She turned to him suddenly, grabbing the collar of his jacket with both her hands. "They _what_, Tom. What did they do," she spoke through clenched teeth.

He opened his eyes, and looked directly at the glassy pools of brown before him. "They shot them."

Tears fell easily from her closed lids; she raised her hand to her mouth to muffle her sobs. Tom held her by her elbows, trying to steady her as she shook; he found it easier to pull her to his chest, where she pressed her face and clung weakly to his jacket. After moments filled with the dead silence of a winter forest save for Nadia's irregular breaths, Tom spoke.

"We'll give them a proper burial, Nadia. I promise." He cradled her body closely, and gently began to guide her in the direction toward Arville; before they left, he smartly erased the young soldier's recent memory and cast an obliteration charm to cover their footprints.

A few tense minutes passed. A thick fog rolled through the forest from the hills, an impenetrable white haze that gave the terrain an illusory quality; the Ardennes was transformed from a disjointed battlefield into a faery-like kingdom, where those inside scarcely knew where they were and the blood from battles past disappeared into a white, merciful Earth.

"I love you," she said quietly.

His eyes darted to the slight figure he held in his arms, his mouth ajar with uncertainty. Her words had disappeared into silence, but he held tightly to the memory of her voice, so that they played again and again in his ears.

"We'll have our entire lives to love each other," he said finally. For some unknown reason, he only half-believed these words; his heart skipped a beat as he realized that it was possibly the first lie he'd ever told her.

* * *

A/N: The delay was largely the result of an extended vacation abroad; thanks again for sticking with me (I can hardly believe I've been writing this for a year!) The next chapter should be my last; I hope to deliver it in a more timely manner. Comment & criticisms, as always, are welcome!


	22. Chapter 22

At first he thought that the old woman would be too easy to break; she was frail, she looked tired, and her arthritic gait certainly betrayed a constant, aching pain that tore at her joints.

At the same time, she was the sole manager of an inn which plenty of German soldiers seemed to need in this time of harsh cold and relentless darkness; who would wash the linens, pay the cooks, secure the firewood if he broke her? Beyond this, he knew that she was by far the most inobservant of all the villagers: as he walked toward her, she wore a scowl on her face that he supposed she used to greet all her German visitors. She wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a soldier and an impersonator, he thought: she would glare at both with equal disdain.

He merely nodded as he passed her to enter the dining hall; here he would find his answer. The culprit would wear a uniform in this place, but there was a significant difference between recognizing a man in uniform and recognizing a man from one's military unit. Every man in that room, every drunk, slovenly soldier and jubiliant, officer would recognize at least one other man; they would have fought together, eaten together, hid together. And the unfamiliar one—the one that nobody knew—this would be _schwarzer wolff._

He settled in among the men easily. With a beer in hand (Einbecker Ur-Bock, a dark beer for a man with rich taste), Aleksandar began to speak with the soldiers. How is everything in the unit, where are they going next, how many nights have they been stationed here. Has their stay been…_eventful_. Yes, yes, one said; last night, a brawl in the dining room, an officer making inappropriate comments. He insulted a soldier—no, no— not a soldier, a young _sturmmann_ and his date, the nurse.

_The nurse._

Did anyone know this young sturmmann? No, yes, maybe, we were drunk, some men went missing, some were deserting, no one asks questions anymore. No one wants to know the truth anymore.

Did anyone know the nurse?

No. Nurse Haber was her name, that's all they knew.

_The nurse._

He finished his beer and slipped back into the entrance hall to speak with the old woman. As usual, she wore a scowl plainly on her face. He hated her wrinkles, baggy, folded skin that hung on her face like a prune, his least favorite edible commodity. He smiled.

"Madame."

"Monsieur," she spat.

"Il y avait deux personnes ici hier soir," he began in impeccable French. He saw the old woman liked this departure from the harshness of the German tongue, and continued his smooth inquisition with added charm and careful pronunciation. He knew that this nurse would be hated by the old woman for traveling with soldiers and SS officers, so he would have to somehow portray her crime without divulging her true alliance to the Allies.

"She's…made her bed with many officers in our ranks, if you know what I mean," he explained, "and it's causing a bit of tension among our men. We need to find and discharge her from service."

"Whore!" he heard the old woman snap. "I knew she was a whore! Such shame, such shame she brings to her family, poor devils."

"You know her family?" This was an unexpected piece of information for him; it would be _very _easy to find her now.

"Knew. I knew her family. Her parents were taken a few weeks back, you would probably know where better than I. Her aunt is living just up the way, a pale yellow house that's about a 20 minute walk from _centre-ville_. I think she's housing soldiers now, as we have all been _forced_ to do." It would've been difficult to conceal the resentment in her voice.

"And we are ever grateful for your _hospitalité_, Madame." He turned toward the door, eager to find this deceptive woman and her companion, but his hand remained on Madame Fournier's countertop. "One more thing, Madame; we all know her as Nurse Haber, but we suspect she changed it before entering our service. What, by chance, is her real name?"

"Nadia." She looked to the ground as she said it, as if it were not worthy of acknowledgment.

"Nadia," he repeated with calm intrigue. He tapped the counter gently and bade her _bon nuit_.

* * *

"Nadia, there's no need to walk so fast, I promise you we will get there soon enough." He had always been a swift walker, yet he was having quite a bit of difficulty keeping up with the girl's rapid pace. The heaviness of cold snow on his boots accompanied by the thick fog that obscured his vision made him more hesitant to hasten his steps. The little warmth that emanated from her fingertips was the only indication that she was still there ahead of him.

They walked in silence for a period of time that no human instrument could measure; it was at once surprisingly fast and unnaturally slow, as hours of winter cold melted into mere minutes when measured by the ferocity of their emotions.

She rested her gloved hand against a spruce tree to catch her breath; Tom followed suite by virtue of his fingers being linked with hers. She looked pale, exhausted, cold. He cast a quick warming spell around them and pulled a piece of stale bread from his pocket. "From last night's dinner," he smiled.

She lifted her tired eyes to meet his; she saw a human compassion that for the longest time she thought he was incapable of possessing. She carefully split the bread in half with a silent utterance, and ate hers; she noticed he saved his piece.

"I hope you plan on eating that later. I refuse to let you save it for me."

He smiled. "I only hunger for your presence my dear." He pulled her close, but he could feel her hesitation. She was scared. But she did not fear him; she feared what they might discover beyond the dense brush, in the fields of Lorne. He cradled her head to his chest, and spoke softly into her hair.

"We'll lay them to rest Nadia. Finally they will be at peace. There's nothing left to stop us."

* * *

At first, Aleksandar just stared at the girl; she was pretty, too pretty almost, dark and smooth and tantalizingly sensuous. He had never found much use for women; he'd only been mildly thrilled by their appearance but not once subdued by their sex—his prior encounters were physical necessities, and especially convenient for social and bureaucratic ascension. He would bring them to officers parties, where they hung from his arm like ragdolls as he cautiously ingratiated himself with men of the upper ranks.

She looked at him sternly, her soft lips suddenly pulling together tightly as if they were glued shut. He knew in that moment how he could get her to talk; it would be almost cathartic to break her beautiful face in front of a mirror. She would watch every scar, every deformity take its rightful place on her formerly delicate visage; he wondered how a smattering of red blood would look against her dark skin, her ochre dress.

* * *

"It was two women that came, though one had an odd countenance."

"And she asked for sugar."

"No, that was a joke, Erich. She was just…a bit aloof."

The soldiers continued to describe the two women who'd come to Madame Za'irpur's house in a bantering manner, mostly because one would forget certain meaningless details ("I think the dress was yellow. No, maybe more brown…") or because the other had a certain affinity for tangents ("The tall one reminded me of my cousin's wife Dierdra, my god she's much fatter though, probably because she ate Berliner Pfannkuchen like the _Reichstag_ demanded it. Ah, what I would give for a bite of a Berliner with plum jam or marmalade filling…")

The conversation faded from his ears as he concentrated on the facts. In _Le Domaine_, she was with a SS agent; at her aunt's house, she was with a tall, quiet female. Were both just accessories she used to get what she needed?

He left the house almost as soon as he arrived; there was hardly a chance he would get any useful information from the soldiers stationed there. She had conned them quite easily. He noticed a slight smile spread across his face as he admired her cleverness; he wondered what she would be like, what she would say when he had her in captivity. He wondered if she was beautiful. But dalliances of the mind were not permitted at a time like this; he sighed and went to the back of the house for a quick smoke.

"Soldat." He called out to the disheveled soul wandering aimlessly in the snow of the forest. The soldier blinked, frowned, then brightened at the sight of a recognizable officer.

"Yes, sir!" he hurried over to the side of the house, staring at Aleksandar's lit cigarette like a starved animal. He offered one immediately, then began questioning: have you seen anything, anyone, what are you doing out there alone, are you aware of the orders for St. Hubert?

The man hesitated; he blinked several times, twice at Aleksandar, twice a the muddied ground beneath them. He bit his lip.

"Are you slow, child? Let me ask again: _what have you seen_?" With each passing moment of silence Aleksandar's stare penetrated deeper. He became immensely interested in why this soldier could not relate what he had been doing in the forest—and what had caused him such difficulty in finding words. _Nadia_.

"I…I don't remember…I…my apologies, sir, I think I may have been coming back to join my troupe in _centre-ville_, I—"

"—Say no more. It's not necessary. Here." He handed the soldier the rest of the cigarettes and began briskly walking toward the forest. "Soldiers," he spoke into his radio, "we need twenty men to the Ardennes East, ten more in plain clothes; lets disperse in the areas between Vesqueville and Lorne, searching for a lone woman, tall and in civilian clothes, further description pending."

* * *

"I don't have the answers you seek." Her voice was low, assuming a hoarse, rasping tone from pain of thirst.

He smiled, speaking in nearly perfect English. "I'm not that gullible." He examined the tools he laid out earlier, the knives and wrenches that should've glistened but were tarnished by the dark stain of dried blood. "I know you're an agent of the U.K. You don't seem to have made any radio transmissions to MI6 since your arrival, so it's unlikely that you're working with the Resistance. You're a free agent, employed to kill; presumably they didn't know how reckless you would be. You left a path that couldn't have been easier to follow."

Her expression did not waver: "That was not me." The blow to the side of her head was so powerful that her right incisor came loose, dangling weakly from a thin strand of nerves and vessels. She spit blood, then fiercely returned her gaze to him, with a barely audible snarl escaping from her lips. She immediately noticed he'd placed a mirror in front of her; she could see now the deformity that was taking place on her face. While the image was jarring, she was sure that he did not understand how little this disturbed her—this beautiful visage had only been the source of years of unwanted attention, and there were days when she couldn't even look at herself in the mirror because of the pain this image had brought to her life. She smiled, a wide, red smile with a devious joy in her eyes.

_She's sick_, he thought. But of course she's sick, what other being could've performed the torturous things to the soldiers back in Antwerp? This would only require a little creativity. What would be her weakness?

"I'm going to ask you who you are working with and who you've been reporting to."

"And I'm going to not answer you."

"We have him you know."

"I do not know to whom you are referring."

Aleksandar smiled. "Of course you do darling." He paced behind her chair, then gently placed his hands on her shoulders. "I saw you both, in the forest…he was…rather _close_." His head dropped to the level of her neck; he could barely control himself. His lips grazed the nape of her neck, and he reveled in the scent of her hair. Lavender.

"The soldier then. The one I _used_ to get here. I don't give a shit what you do with him, German filth like the rest of you." Her voice remained steady. How could they have found him? How could they have subdued him? She silently prayed that the vicious lieutenant wouldn't see her pulsating carotid, else he would deduce just how much his male captive meant to her.

His heart raced as he pressed his lips to her neck, feeling the bounding pulse of a lie. But he was disturbed by his reaction to this, to the fact that this powerful woman had a companion, one whom she presumably cared for quite deeply. The task at hand began to fade; with her neck in his grasp, he felt the urge to kiss her, consume her, show her that her beloved soldier was nothing, that _he _was the only one who could match her crazed dedication and impenetrable resolve.

She cleared her throat and spit forth the tooth that had been loosely hanging from severed vessels; blood began to generously pour forth, from her mouth down to her chin and chest, but her eyes remained fixated in ambivalence on the mirror in front of her. She hated the image of him pressed so tightly to her back, clutching her from behind, almost as if he sought to feed from her neck.

Why was it, she thought, that the only men who seemed utterly unable to resist her were also those who could be called certifiably insane?

_Because you drive us crazy, Nadia. _

He was there. Here. Somewhere. _Tom—Tom where are you, I think he's going to kill us both_—

_I won't let him touch you_.

Aleksander pulled away from the girl, upset with himself for getting so carried away in his fantasy of her; he noticed her eyes were closed, her brows furrowed, almost as if deep in thought… or in conversation. He pulled his blade and sliced her forearm with nonchalance, a superficial cut but a distracting one nonetheless. Her eyes widened and her breaths increased; she stared at him for only a moment before he struck her face yet again, this time from the left.

"No talking," he said sternly, calmly.

"I didn't say a word."

Again, he struck her face; she struggled to see out of her left eye as the tissue around the orbit swelled with blood. She didn't know if she lost another tooth or not, the pain became so diffuse that individual sensations became difficult to discern. Again, he hit her.

She closed her eyes.

_Tom, he's going to kill me. _

_Tom, I love you_.

There was no response.

Author's note: Yes, it's been two years since updating this story; there is no excuse except that graduate school has kept my writing captive for a number of other endeavors. I hope to finish this story soon, and again, all feedback is welcome!


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